


Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

by ugly_bad_good (JJPOR)



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series), Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: At a dramatically appropriate moment, Blood, Blood Magic, Cutting, F/F, F/M, Gen, Greetings Neonate, Hippies, Let's Tell a Vampire Story, Multi, Other, Poor Eva, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, SPOILERS up to the end of L.A. by Night Season 4!, Sure to be retroactively canon-divergent, Vampires, warning: abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2020-11-24 17:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 53,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20911691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJPOR/pseuds/ugly_bad_good
Summary: Eva, now and then, charting her course through the World of Darkness.





	1. The Age of Aquarius

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS up to the end of L.A. by Night Season 3!
> 
> So, I’ve become kind of obsessed by the RPG series “L.A. by Night” over the past few months. It’s excellent in itself, as well as rekindling my longstanding enthusiasm for the World of Darkness and its incredibly baroque lore and metaplot. And as is my way, I’ve only gone and written fic about it, specifically about my favourite character. It’s just come to my attention as I’ve come to post this that AO3 user cordsycords has also started what looks like some extremely lovely fic covering similar ground, but I hope my efforts will plough a slightly different furrow (the Giovanni are coming, is all I’ll say for now), and in the current inter-season hiatus I think we probably want as much fic as possible to tide us over :D Also I most definitely do not own any of these characters or the world they live in - this is just a bit of fun. So, as a great man once said, let’s tell a vampire story…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eva remembers.

She awakens instantly, as if at the flick of a switch, and opens her eyes on darkness. 

She knows it must be dark outside too, or she would not have stirred from her day-long slumber. She stays perfectly still for now, curled motionless on the narrow futon in exactly the same position she has held for the past several hours. She never tosses or turns or fidgets in her sleep. She does not dream. Her heart does not beat and her chest does not rise or fall because she does not breathe. When she sleeps, she is literally dead to the world. 

She remains dead now. She has been dead for almost five decades, so it would be very surprising indeed if she suddenly were not. 

And yet, even though her dead heart does not beat, her dead lungs do not inflate or deflate, her dead stomach does not growl or gurgle, she is hungry. 

She is _always_ hungry. 

_Come, Neonate,_ the Beast whispers in _his_ voice. _Let us go hunting tonight._

She curtly reminds it they are no longer back at the Chantry in New York, have not been in more than thirty years. This is _her_ domain, these four windowless breezeblock walls and the other rooms beyond the thick metal door. No Regent rules here, only her. Alone. 

_Let us go out into the night, my dear… _

For a second, blind panic seizes her; she feels the rabid frenzy rising within her and thinks…no, _knows_ for a certain fact, that tonight is the night she will succumb. She thinks the same thing nearly every night. And every night, as she does now, she sits up and wills herself to stay calm, to ignore the tempter’s voice inside her skull, to resist.

She reaches for the antique table lamp that stands on the concrete floor beside the futon, and floods the small, cube-shaped room with soft yellow light. Now she can see the shaggy rag rug in the middle of the floor, the old band posters, the hangings tie-dyed in swirls of psychedelic colour that almost hide the pipes and electrical conduits snaking across three of the four walls. The fourth wall, opposite the door, is occupied almost completely by crammed, sagging bookshelves. Against the wall facing the futon, a neatly-arranged dressing table and stool stand next to another low shelving unit. This one is filled not with books but with vinyl singles, EPs and LPs in dogeared cardboard sleeves, with an old RCA record player in pride of place on top. 

The decorations, her books, her music, they help remind her, not of _him_ but of what came before. They remind her of when she was a girl who still breathed and dreamed and felt the sun upon her face. They remind her what it was like to love. They are the life raft she boards whenever the frenzy threatens to drown her. 

_Let us seek out a worthy vessel to slake our thirst…_

She feels a feral snarl kindling at the back of her throat as she imagines exactly what _that_ would feel and taste like, hot copper and salt gushing and flowing… How good…no, how _exquisite_ that would be! She fights to hold the snarl in, to suppress the fantasy, but she has managed to frighten herself again. She rises decisively to her bare feet and crosses the room, making for the record player. 

As she does, she catches sight of herself in the dressing table’s mirror; a pale, nude figure with eyes like sapphires and a torrent of slightly curly, ivory-coloured hair falling past its shoulders. She does not wear sleeping clothes any more than she needs a sheet or blanket to cover her in her daytime bed. Her haven almost always retains its subterranean chill regardless of the Californian heat outside, but she barely notices normal heat or cold when she is awake. She feels nothing at all when she sleeps. Her dead body naturally acclimates to the temperature of its surroundings without any physical reaction. Goose bumps are for the living. As for her modesty, free spirit that she was when she was alive, she always thought it was overrated. And it is not as if she ever has houseguests. 

Nonetheless, her first instinct on seeing her reflection is always to glance away. Even after all these years, she still has not rid herself of that. She makes herself look. “Pale” is the wrong word, she thinks for the ten thousandth time as she gazes upon herself. Her skin and hair are_ white_, an unnatural pallor the colour of chalk or talcum powder. No living human looks like that; no dead one she has ever met, either. Even after long years of study, she is still not sure exactly what ritual _he_ used; some dark, left-handed magick to be sure, ancient and arcane. The colouring is uniform and unbroken, like an even coat of paint over every square inch of her body, even her lips. Even her fingernails and toenails, if she did not paint them. She does, though; they are currently a very dark, glossy shade of red. 

That too serves to remind her. _She_ was red, once upon a time. 

She pauses on her way to the record player, picking up her wooden jewellery box from the dressing table. She runs her fingers over the decorative carvings around the box’s edge until they find the hidden catch to pop open the tiny secret drawer in its base. She takes out the ring inside and weighs it in her hand for a second. She holds it between finger and thumb and holds it up to the light, rotating it slowly so she can see the tiny letters engraved around its inner face. 

She was _crimson_. 

She slides the ring onto her finger as she approaches the shelf of records. As she always does at times like this, she takes her time over them, lightly brushing her hand back and forth across the stacked cardboard, very carefully considering which one she should play as she tries to ignore the continued whispers. 

_Neonate…_

This too is a sort of ritual, she supposes, or rather a distraction. It is something to think about that does not involve hunger or feeding. At the same time, it is important to choose precisely the right song. Music more than anything can take her back into her past, can make her remember, for good or ill. 

Yes, she decides eventually, conscious of the ring’s cold grip on her finger; she can feel _that_ well enough. Her browsing fingers have come to rest on one record in particular. Yes, _this_ one, even though she knows it will crush her. 

She eases the gleaming black disc out of its sleeve and delicately lays it on the turntable, watching the needle swing smoothly across to drop into the first track. A faint static hiss issues from the speakers, along with the occasional crackle or pop, testament to the sheer number of times she has played this record before, but then the music starts. Ethereal woodwinds fill the room, quickly overtaken by a building, insistent percussion beat. 

She returns to the futon and seats herself upon it, her spine ramrod straight and her head held high. Carefully, she folds her legs into a full lotus, as she first learned to do when she still lived, her crossed heels pressed up against her belly. She lets her arms fall open so the backs of her hands rest upon her knees. She closes her eyes and, with a physical exertion, forces air into her dead lungs. 

And hold… 

_Let us venture out and find a mortal life, that we may sate ourselves upon it…_

She empties her mind and loses herself to the music, letting the pipes and flutes and drums and tambourines wash over her, letting them crowd out the heckling, insinuating inner voice. She feels the memories stirring, welling unbidden from the darkness within her. At first, as with the mirror, her mind is reluctant to acknowledge them and the promise of pain it feels in them, but she sternly drags it back into focus. 

As the music grows louder and more joyful and the percussion races, she remembers a night long, long ago. She remembers the orange haze of city lights filtered through a steamed-up window. She remembers a bell clanging, and a woman in black emerging from the dark on a breath of cold, damp air. 

And breathe out… 

She slowly releases the air she is holding in her chest. It hisses through her bared fangs. 

She remembers a voice, but not the cold, hard voice of the Beast. This voice is by turns soft and sharp, sometimes chiming with laughter and sometimes weighed down by unimaginable sadness. 

It hurts. The memory of this voice hurts so much, like a splinter of obsidian piercing her dead heart, but she forces herself to relive it, to feel every iota of the loss and grief she now associates with it. 

The music is now accompanied by singing, high and clear, its airy, unearthly tones matching the mysticism of the lyrics: “When the Moon is in the Seventh House…” 

With another effort, she draws more air into her lungs until they feel ready to burst. 

And hold… 

“And Jupiter aligns with Mars…” 

Nothing but blackness behind her eyelids. Nothing but the music swelling around her. Nothing but the memory consuming her thoughts. 

Nothing but the ring, encircling her finger like a band of burning ice. 

“Then peace will guide the planets…” 

The voice of the Beast is silent, drowned out by the singing, but not the other voice in her head. She can hear that all too clearly:

_“Lastochka moya…”_

It is a good pain, she tells herself as she reels from it; a human sort of pain, one she should be glad she can still feel. 

And breathe out… 

“And love will steer the stars!” 

* * * 

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!” Evangeline sang enthusiastically, echoing the chorus of more tuneful voices blasting from the transistor radio behind the counter. 

As she sang, she danced, waving her hands in the air, shaking her head until her long, loose hair flew and whipped, swaying her whole body from side to side. And as she danced, she could forget the world outside, the wet spring darkness beyond the bookstore’s misted window. All that mattered right now was the music and the movement and… 

“Age of Aquariu-uuusssss…!” She raised her own voice even more loudly and joyously: “_Aquaari_…!” 

The bell above the door clanged loudly, accompanied by a gust of cool outdoor air lightly scented with fallen rain and traffic fumes. The sound and smell cut through the music, dropping her back into the real world with a jolt. 

_Bummer._

Evangeline pushed her unruly locks out of her eyes to see what was presumably a customer entering the store, at the moment no more than a dark silhouette against the harsh glow of the streetlights on Columbus Avenue. She quickly raised herself on tiptoes to reach the shelf above her head, snapping the radio’s off-switch and plunging the store into silence. 

It was a woman, she saw, as the figure emerged into the light in front of the counter. She seemed taller than Evangeline, or maybe that was just because she had boots on instead of flat-heeled Jesus sandals. She wore a long black leather coat over an even longer black lace dress, with maybe ten pounds of silver jewellery around her neck. Evangeline could see crosses and ankhs and pentagrams, along with other, more esoteric symbols she did not recognise. The woman’s hair fell in an unkempt, dark brown waterfall, almost hiding one side of her face. The eye Evangeline could see clearly was ringed with heavy black makeup that, along with the woman’s deep maroon lipstick, only emphasised the deathly paleness of her skin. 

She looked like nothing Evangeline had seen before, even after living around New York City for the past three years. That was not a bad thing from where she was standing. 

“Good evening.” The woman had a crisp, commanding voice with, Evangeline thought, perhaps the barest hint of an accent. She eyed the radio on the shelf and smiled, obviously having seen Evangeline’s attempts at singing and dancing. “I’m so glad I caught you open.”

Evangeline glanced guiltily at the clock on the wall. She should have closed the store five minutes ago, she realised, but that groovy song had come on the radio, and then that other one just now, and she just_ had_ to dance to them… 

“Um, yeah,” she mumbled, uncomfortably, before remembering Artie’s very earnest lessons on how best to serve customers. “And how may I be of assistance, ma’am?” 

“_Ma’am_,” the woman scoffed, good-naturedly enough. “An…acquaintance of mine told me Artie’s Used Books was the best bookstore on the West Side, specialising in rare editions. I was hoping you might have what I’m looking for.” She was already carrying a small bundle of books in the crook of her arm; old volumes with spotted yellow-brown pages and cracked leather bindings. Not exactly in mint condition, but clearly well-loved by their previous owners. 

“I…” Evangeline hesitated. Artie was the one who handled negotiations with serious collectors, and he liked to drive a hard bargain. Artie had also left an hour ago. She almost told the customer to come back tomorrow, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the way the woman was looking at her so expectantly, or maybe it was… She felt a queasy fluttering deep down in her stomach that she did not quite understand. 

Artie had trusted her to put the cash in the safe and lock up the store, she told herself. Surely that meant he trusted her to handle something like this too…? 

“And what are you looking for?” she heard herself ask. 

“Well…” The woman leaned forward, her jewellery rattling quietly, and very carefully set her books down on the counter. “I am in search of a particular edition of _Prodrome du Messianisme; Révélation des destinées de l’humanité_ by Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński.” The French title tripped fluently from her tongue. “A limited print run, put out by Lucas Corso and Sons of Paris in 1881. It is reputed to contain some…unique annotations not to be found in any other edition. I have tried _every_ library and bookstore in the city.” Evangeline suspected that was a slight exaggeration. “You really are my last hope.” 

“And that would be…?” Evangeline wracked her brains. She was sure she had heard the author’s name before somewhere… It came to her in a flash; the Polish mathematician and philosopher who had been an influence and mentor for… Éliphas Lévi! “That would be in our occult section!” She should have guessed from the customer’s choice in necklaces, she supposed. “I’ll be right with you.” She quickly went over to lock the door and turn the sign to “CLOSED”, just in case anybody else decided to wander in here after hours, and then set off towards the back of the store. “This way!” 

“Lead on,” said the woman. 

“I can’t make any promises,” Evangeline warned her as they passed down narrow, lamplit aisles filled from floor to ceiling with row upon row of used books. “It sounds like it’s a really rare edition, but maybe…” 

“We can only look,” the woman answered. “I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised to find a person your age who has even heard of an obscure figure like Hoene-Wroński. Although I suppose the magical arts have become fashionable again among some of the young people…” Something about the way she said this made Evangeline wonder how old she was, exactly. Looking at her, she honestly could not tell. 

“Some people say it really is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” she replied. She found herself wanting to impress this strange customer, and not just in the hope of making a sale. 

“Or perhaps the twilight,” the woman observed mysteriously. 

“I’ve done a lot of reading about it. The Hermetic tradition, Rosicrucianism, the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Wicca… I find it all fascinating. And, you know, I’ve fooled around with Ouija boards and Tarot cards and things…but who hasn’t, right?” 

“Indeed,” said the woman, gazing at Evangeline with renewed interest. 

Evangeline suddenly felt very self-conscious. “I mean, my major is in anthropology…” 

“At Barnard?” the woman asked, abruptly. 

“Yeah, that’s right.” Evangeline wondered how she could possibly know that. “I…” 

“And working your way through school too?” The customer nodded as she looked around at the shelves of books. “Very commendable.” She frowned thoughtfully at Evangeline for a moment. “Yes, I think I’ve seen you on campus.” She smiled again as she indicated Evangeline’s brightly-coloured kaftan and matching strings of beads. “Do you always wear red? It certainly makes you stand out from the crowd.” 

“I…” Evangeline awkwardly looked down at her clothes. “Not always.” Although she did wear it a lot, she had to admit. She liked the colour and she thought it complemented her hair, which she had always considered her best feature. 

“Were you involved in the protests last year?” the woman asked. They had finally reached the dark corner back near the stock room, where Artie kept his selection of books on the mystical, the supernatural and the occult. 

“The ones against the new gym in Morningside Park? Yeah, me and my friends went to a few demonstrations with the Columbia students. I got tear-gassed at one of them.” It was only after she said this that she wondered whether it was the sort of thing she should be sharing with a prospective customer. “Things got really violent after that. And I know the cops started it, but I saw one of them being loaded into an ambulance. They said some guy from Columbia jumped on him and broke his back. I thought our side was better than that.” 

“Sometimes you have to fight back,” the woman suggested. “Sometimes they give you no choice.” 

“I don’t know.” Evangeline shook her head. “That kind of thing… That’s just not my bag. I believe in peace and love. Some of the guys there weren’t even interested in the politics, they were just on some kind of power trip. The community activists from Harlem even told them they didn’t need rich white folks to fight their battles for them, but they wouldn’t listen.” 

“Yes,” the woman agreed, sadly. “There can be a fine line between showing solidarity and appointing yourself somebody else’s saviour.” 

“So, do you, like…study at Barnard too?” Once again, Evangeline wondered about the woman’s age. She definitely seemed too mature to be an undergraduate. 

“I…work there sometimes,” the woman said. “I mainly make use of the library.” 

“Are you in grad school?” That made more sense. 

The woman’s smile had gained a secretive edge. “I have some…old friends on the faculty.” 

“Because, if I’d seen you there before… Well, you’re…” Evangeline paused, knowing even as she continued to talk that she was saying too much again. “That is, if I’d seen someone around college who looked like you, I’m sure I’d remember.”

The woman let out a surprisingly bright little laugh, clearly delighted, the way an adult might be delighted by a toddler using a curse word. “I should take that as a compliment,” she said. “I think.” 

“_Oh_.” Evangeline’s hand flew to her mouth. Artie probably would have fired her on the spot for saying something like that to a customer. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I shouldn’t have…” 

“It’s all right,” the woman assured her. “And please, I’m not a _ma’am_.” The slim, pallid hand she extended was studded with rings covered in magical runes and sigils. Her nails were painted black to match her clothes. “The name I was given is _Yekaterina_, like the great empress.” That hint of an accent was more noticeable when she pronounced the name. “But I am not a great empress either. My friends call me Katya.” 

Evangeline stared at the hand for second before she realised she was supposed to shake it. “Um, I…” The woman’s handshake was firm but gentle. Her soft, dry skin felt like ice. Evangeline shivered at her touch, the hairs prickling at the back of her neck. It had been a chilly New York spring day, she supposed. It was probably even colder out there now it was dark. “My name is…Evangeline, and… Well… Just Evangeline.” 

“Evangeline.” Yekaterina…no, Katya…smiled more broadly as she released her hand. Her teeth were very white and even. “That’s a pretty name.” 

“I…I…” Evangeline could feel her cheeks burning. The fluttering in her belly had returned with a vengeance. “Thank you.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve made you blush. Your face has turned nearly as red as your hair.” 

“I…” Evangeline somehow managed to tear her eyes away from Katya’s, forcing herself to concentrate on the bookshelves in front of them instead. “So, um, this is what we have.” She cringed a little at some of the titles she could see. Paperbacks about crystal healing and the Bermuda Triangle and whether or not God had been an astronaut. She was sure somebody like Katya would not be interested in anything like _that_. 

“I love that smell,” said Katya, moving her face closer to that ranks of books. 

Evangeline knew what she meant; that sharp, musty scent of brittle paper and ancient dust that hung around the older books. “I do too,” she admitted. “Smells like…_time_. Or something.” 

“Mmm, yes.” Katya raised her eyebrows at the gilt lettering on the spine of the book directly in front of her. It was newer than most of the others, a thick volume bound in black faux leather. “Oh _my_. The _Necronomicon_…?” 

“Not really,” Evangeline quickly clarified. “Artie says that’s just a load of ancient Mesopotamian religious texts reprinted by some British publishing house and marketed at credulous idiots who’ve read too much Lovecraft.” This was the kind of thing Artie said all the time. “I’ve read some Lovecraft,” she added, with a furtive glance at Katya. “He was…really racist, actually.” 

“He was,” Katya agreed. “Also, in my experience, terrified of women.” 

“You talk like you met him,” Evangeline observed jokingly. “He died more than thirty years ago.” 

For an instant, Katya seemed taken aback. “Reading an author’s work can be _like_ meeting them. Not that that’s always a good thing.” She lingered for a moment over a shelf taken up almost completely by a twelve-volume set with pale green covers. “Oh, _The Golden Bough_,” she breathed, delighted again. “The unabridged edition, too.” 

“It was reading things like that for my anthropology classes that turned me on to the more far out stuff,” Evangeline informed her. “Don’t get me wrong, Frazer was mistaken about a lot of things…” 

“True,” said Katya, “but his triumph was in the sheer amount of data he compiled. A bit like all of those different magical traditions you mentioned just now, there are nuggets of gold sprinkled throughout, even if the one compiling it did not fully understand what they were recording. For the true initiate, however…” She fell silent in mid flow, as if she had decided that was quite enough for now. 

“I think this is more the kind of thing you’re looking for.” Evangeline climbed onto a handy stool to examine one of the higher shelves, one groaning under the weight of a row of mighty tomes. She read off author’s names as she went along the line: “Helena Blavatsky…” 

“Ah, the infamous Madame Blavatsky,” Katya murmured knowingly. 

“Aleister Crowley…” 

“He called himself the wickedest man in the world…as if he understood anything about real wickedness.” 

“Éliphas Lévi,” Evangeline continued, “MacGregor Mathers, Theodor Reuss, Austin Osman Spare, A. E. Waite…” She sighed as she reached the end of the row. “It doesn’t look like we have_ anything_ by Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński.” She hopped down from the stool again. “I’m sorry.” 

“Oh, well,” said Katya. “It was worth a try.” 

Part of Evangeline was secretly glad they did not have the sought-after volume. Artie rarely bothered with price tags on the really collectible books, and she would not have had the first clue as to the value to put on such a rare edition. Ask for too much and she might have driven away a potential regular customer; sell it for too little, and Artie would have been pissed. At the same time, she was genuinely disappointed she had not been able to help. 

“Look,” she said as they walked back to the front of the store. “Artie, the owner, he has all kinds of contacts. You know, these out of town book dealers? They go up and down the East Coast looking for things in flea markets, house clearances and the like, and sometimes they bring Artie some really rare finds.” And then usually spent half the morning haggling with him over a price, she did not add. “When I see him tomorrow, I’ll ask him about the book you want. Maybe he can ask around. We could…” She paused, conscious of her heart pattering for some reason she could not define, trying to make herself sound casual. “_I_ could give you a call if we manage to locate a copy.” 

Katya smiled at her again as she went to retrieve the books she had left on the counter. “That would be very kind of you.” 

“It’d be no trouble.” Evangeline went around to the other side of the counter and slid across a pencil and an empty paper bag for Katya to write on. “You’d better write down the title and the other details. I won’t remember in the morning.” 

Katya picked up the pencil in one ring-covered hand and proceeded to do as Evangeline had asked. “And this is the telephone number where you can reach me,” she said as she jotted that down too on the shiny brown paper. It was a Manhattan area code, Evangeline noticed. Katya’s handwriting was very small, square and neat. “Early evening is probably the best time to call. I’m usually in then.” 

“Sure.” 

“And perhaps…” Katya carefully laid down the pencil and gathered up her books. “Perhaps you could just…call me, if you wanted to?” For a heartbeat or two, she looked almost nervous. “If you’re interested in old books, especially books dealing with the Hermetic arts, then I’ve managed to acquire quite a few of my own. Maybe you’d like to have a look at them sometime?” 

“I…” Evangeline knew she was blushing again. “I’d like that.” 

Katya visibly relaxed, her nervousness immediately melting into another smile, this time with just a hint of bashfulness. “Well, goodbye, then.” She let Evangeline walk her to the door and unlock it for her. “Or perhaps I should say _do svidaniya_; until our next meeting.” 

“Yeah,” said Evangeline, awkwardly. “Until then.” 

Katya paused in the open doorway, gazing out into the cold night. The streetlamps illuminated the far side of the avenue, a façade of stoops and steam grates and wrought iron fire escapes zigzagging up the fronts of redbrick tenement houses. A green, black and white NYPD patrol car slowly cruised past. “Are you going to walk home when you’ve finished here?” she asked, a touch apprehensively. 

Evangeline shrugged. “I guess.” 

“Well, you be careful.” 

“My dorm’s only a few blocks from here,” Evangeline insisted. “I’ll be fine.” 

“This can be a very dangerous city.” Katya spoke very slowly and quietly, almost dreamily, without looking in Evangeline’s direction. “More dangerous than you realise. There are…people out here on these very streets, this very night, who would look at a girl like you walking alone and see nothing but…_prey_ for the taking.” 

“I’ve lived here long enough to know that,” Evangeline replied. “I’m always careful. I’ve never had any trouble.”

Katya turned her head to look directly at her, eyes glittering with reflected fire from the streetlights. She took her hand again to give it a gentle squeeze; even now, her touch was cold. Evangeline shuddered inside. “Be safe, Evangeline.” And with that, she turned away, her coattails swirling around her like a cloak as she strode off into the night. 

Evangeline closed the door again and stood with her back against it. She could feel the chill of the glass through her clothing, and it made her remember Katya’s icy touch upon her hand. She tried to make sense of what had just happened, of the things Katya had not said as much as the things she had. She tried to understand what she was feeling right now. It was as if something strange and exciting had intruded into her everyday world, and she was not sure whether she should be frightened by it or whether she should throw the door open and chase after it.

She turned back to the window, peering into the patterns of orange and black beyond the water-beaded pane, searching for any sign of Katya. She thought she could see a figure in the distance, a shadowy phantom melting and disappearing into the darkness. She had her hand on the door latch, ready to twist it, but at the last moment her courage failed her. She stayed exactly where she was.

A second later, Katya was gone.

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My take on Eva’s backstory, apart from the few hints and data points shared in the show itself, is needless to say pure baseless headcanon and certain to be disproven if and when we learn more about her. Given her apparent connection to NYC and, of course, to House/Clan Tremere, Barnard College made sense to me. If this creates the impression that she was, in life, a “lifestyle hippie” rather than a full-time flower child, well, most people were. The 1968 protests against Columbia University’s alleged plans to build an allegedly racially-segregated gym are a real historical event. The song lyrics quoted are from "Aquarius," a number from the musical "Hair," released as part of a medley by the group The 5th Dimension in March 1969.


	2. Cast Your Dancing Spell My Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which past decisions have present consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: recreational drug-taking, vampirism.

There. Her lungs are completely empty, and this time they stay that way. Now the music has ended, she can hear the Beast again, but its whispers have become muted and incoherent, a faint murmur in the furthest corner of her mind. 

She knows it will return in full force soon enough, but for now she feels more centred and in control than she did upon first waking. She feels ready to face yet another night. She unfolds her legs from their lotus and raises her arms above her head, extending her fingers to the night sky she can picture far beyond the reinforced concrete ceiling. She stretches thoroughly before climbing back to her feet. 

She carefully returns the record to its sleeve and the sleeve to its shelf, still thinking about that evening in Artie’s Used Books, those few minutes upon which her entire existence hinges. The pain of the memory has faded but leaves a dull echo in the still cavity of her chest. She feels a trickle of wetness slowly crawl down her left cheek. She quickly wipes away the solitary tear; when she looks down at her hand her alabaster skin is smeared red. The wrinkles of her palm are traced in dark lines of vitae. 

The smell of it hits her instantly, rich and savoury, intoxicating. Before she can stop herself, she has pressed the hand to her mouth, eagerly running her tongue along the lines and grooves, desperate not to waste any of the precious nectar. The taste is like nothing she ever experienced, was capable of experiencing, when she was alive. It tastes like life itself. She vaguely remembers what sex felt like, and knows it never felt as good as this. It is a moment spent in Heaven; it leaves her swooning, trembling, licking her lips, aching for more. 

That is all it takes to make the Beast growl again. Every waking moment is a delaying action, a trap, a knife-edge she must navigate as best she can. 

_Yes, Neonate. You want more. You_ need _more…_

She throws open the heavy metal door and enters the long, narrow space directly adjoining her sanctum. She turns on the fluorescent tube wired to one of the electrical conduits running overhead. Its light is brighter and harsher than the lamp in the bedroom. It glares from the pale cement walls and floor. 

This is her workroom-cum-library-cum laboratory, as well as the closest thing she needs to a kitchen. The left-hand wall is lined with more bookshelves, although the books they contain are of a more academic and professional nature than the ones she reads for pleasure. Some of the titles are in German, French or Spanish; others in Latin or Greek. There is no _The Lord of the Rings_ or _Stranger in a Strange Land_ here. One bookcase in particular has shutters constructed from steel bars and armoured glass, secured by a chunky padlock. The volumes faintly visible within are all very large and very old. Fear of theft is not the only reason she keeps those ones shut away. The elaborate black wax seal applied to the join between the shutters, and the wards and glyphs painted directly onto the glass, are just as important as the lock. 

The right-hand wall has a long wooden workbench running along much of its length, with shelves above housing a large selection of laboratory glassware, ritual paraphernalia and jars and bottles containing a wide variety of substances and ingredients. A camping stove and two cauldrons, one large and fashioned from plain iron, the other smaller, silver and more decorative, stand in the centre of the bench. A chalkboard still bears the smeared remnants of a complicated magical diagram. Bunches of dried herbs and flowers give the room a pleasant, fusty smell. 

Near the far end of the room, where there is another door identical to that she has come through, is a full-size refrigerator running off another jury-rigged power point. She opens it and stands considering its contents with the same deadly seriousness as when she was choosing which record to play. 

The refrigerator is full of blood. 

Its upper shelves contain test tube racks full of small sealed vials, all bearing neatly handwritten labels detailing names, dates, additional notes. Some of them are filled with the blood of the living and others with Kindred vitae including some of her own. These, she keeps for ritual purposes and for use in the concoction of potions and elixirs. They call it blood sorcery for a reason, after all. The lower shelves, by contrast, are stacked with clear PVC blood bags of the sort hospitals use for transfusions. Each one bulges with thick, dark red liquid. 

The Beast is horrified. 

_I strongly urge you to reconsider, my dear…_

She tells it to be quiet and takes out the two bags she has chosen. The loops near their tops, intended to fit the hook of an IV stand, provide convenient handles. As with the vials, the bags have labels, in this case standardised forms meant to be filled out by the blood bank at the time of donation, tracking the blood’s origin, age and storage history. All these particular labels show, however, are brief signed and dated declarations by two different donors, scrawled without regard for the printed lines and boxes. Each confirms the blood within was given freely and consensually. Underneath each signature, written in heavy black marker by a different hand that is the same for both bags, is the word “DIAZEPAM.” 

The labels on the other bags in the fridge name a selection of chemicals, ranging from various prescription painkillers to cannabis to mescaline to psilocybin to lysergic acid diethylamide. Some nights, she lies on her bed for hours but feels like she is floating above it, giggling and murmuring at the way the room seems to melt around her, its walls crawling and breathing and her dead heart bursting with innocent love for the beautiful colours and shapes she sees dancing before her eyes. LSD is her remedy for the times when she really wants to forget about the world where she exists and the thing she has become, when the Beast is howling and raging much more loudly than it is tonight. It makes her feel as if the world makes perfect sense, instead of being the cruel joke it really is, as if the universe is smiling down on her and her alone. She even loves the Beast in those moments; she even loves _him_, while the acid trip lasts, and forgives him, and pities him and his silly red glasses. She never feels that way after she has come down. 

She doesn’t want to take anything heavy tonight, though; she has work she wants to get on with. She just needs something to relax her body and mind a little, to take the edge off. 

_Blood should be hot, not chilled, _the Beast chides her. 

She takes down a large hand-glazed stoneware pitcher from one of the shelves and places it on the workbench, holds the first blood bag above it and unstoppers the port in the bag’s bottom to let its contents ooze out. The cold blood smells like a bland, weak imitation of the drops of nectar she sucked from her hand but she will make do. 

_It should be fresh from the vein, unadulterated, steaming with vitality…_

When no more blood pours from the bag, she rips the plastic open and licks off the last red smears still clinging to its inner surfaces. It is not table manners, but she needs every last drop to ease her hunger. Then she repeats the procedure with the second bag. There are about two pints of blood swimming in the pitcher when she has finished; a larger quantity than she would take were she feeding from somebody’s neck or wrist. She seems to need more and more with every passing year. 

She raises the pitcher in both hands and grimly starts to drink, almost gagging at the stale taste. There is a rankness to the flavour, a whiff of the bags in which it was stored, and a slight bitterness from the drug that contaminates it. At least the declarations on the labels were true; had the blood been taken unwillingly, from people in fear or pain or under stress, she would be able to taste that too, even allowing for the drugs they were on. Some Kindred, she knows too well, prefer their blood to taste like that. It adds an extra zest for them. Some Ventrue, with what they would call their refined palates, even need it that way. 

_The pain and fear of the kine are but spices to be savoured. Come, let us go out and…_

She drinks the whole two pints down in three or four long swallows, pouring the pitcher’s contents into herself, tipping it up to let the dregs of nasty medicine trickle down her throat. As she wipes her fingers over her lips and chin and the inside of the empty jug, then slurps the last traces from them, she feels her dead flesh quiver in ecstasy and disgust. 

There is nobody still living or undead whom she trusts enough to let them see her like this. This undignified spectacle, the desperate, shivering addict standing naked as she laps the sour blood from her stained hands, is most decidedly not the aspect she chooses to show the world outside her haven. 

As the blood she has consumed mingles alchemically with her own, the narcotic effect comes over her, far more quickly than it would for a living person who took the drug orally. The tension starts to drain out of her, muscles unknotting that she had not known she was tensing, a calmness creeping over her restless mind. Her eyelids feel heavier than they did a moment ago, but she no longer tires or sleeps in exactly the same way as when she was alive. It is more like the memory of drowsiness than the actual sensation of it. She finds herself smiling softly at nothing in particular. 

She looks down at the ring on her finger and sees a sticky red smudge marring its shiny surface. She cleans it with her tongue. As she tastes the cold metal, she wonders how it all came to this. She often wonders that. 

She tries her hardest to make the most of her undeath, to find purpose and satisfaction in her work and studies. And in the years since she arrived here in Los Angeles, she has indeed felt happiness, or at least contentment, from time to time. And yet, she still finds herself yearning in vain for when she was a lively, pink-cheeked, redheaded young woman just discovering life and love and all their wonders, and not this weary bleached monster in its underground lair. She sometimes wonders what might have happened, where and what she would be now, if events had taken a slightly different route. 

The truth is, her road to Hell had many paving stones. That night in the bookstore, of course, but there were other moments, other choices. She remembers a small square of brown blotting paper, bloodstains glistening under orange street light, a soft, cold kiss… 

She remembers a white plastic boot on a brownstone step, and a decision. 

* * * 

“So, where are you going?” Thelma asked. 

“Nowhere.” Evangeline did not take her eyes off the grimy mirror over the washbasin. She was busy putting the finishing touches to her eyeshadow. 

“Nowhere dressed like that?” 

“Yeah.” Evangeline put away her makeup and picked a piece of lint from her long-sleeved minidress. It was scarlet with a subtle floral pattern, matching the Alice band holding back her hair. Its collar and cuffs were white like her plastic knee-boots. She had spent an hour choosing the outfit. She wanted to look her best tonight. 

“Oh, really?” Thelma was lying sideways across her bed on the other side of the dorm room, her legs vertical against the wall and a book propped open on her denimed thighs. Her bare feet rested on a poster depicting a huge red Venus symbol on black, with a red clenched fist inside the symbol’s upper circle. The other wall decorations on her side of the room were mostly newspaper clippings covering different student protests; Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago… 

“I’m just meeting a friend.” At least, someone Evangeline hoped would become a friend. She turned away from the mirror to pick up her purse. The posters and flyers papering her side of the room were all garishly coloured, many of them hand-drawn, advertising a multitude of mostly long-expired bands, concerts and be-ins. She saw the sky through the narrow window between the twin beds; it was dark purple now, quickly fading to black. 

“You forget I know all your friends,” Thelma pointed out. “Most of them are homeless druggies who sit around in the park all day. And God knows where they go at night.”

Evangeline was momentarily outraged. “They’re not _homeless druggies_! They’re a commune.” 

“A homeless druggie who wears flowers in their hair and knows two guitar chords is still a homeless druggie. It’s one thing to end up like that because you’ve been victimised by the Man, but to _choose _that life for yourself…?” Thelma shook her head despairingly. “My point is, Pete and his dropout flowerchild playmates don’t normally rate your best dress on a Tuesday night and…” She sniffed, theatrically. “Did you bathe in that perfume? I can smell it from here. I will say it’s a lot better than your usual distinctive aroma of pot and patchouli oil.” 

Evangeline brandished her extended middle finger. “Up yours.” 

Thelma just laughed. “So, does Pete know he’s been dumped for your new _friend_?” 

“His name isn’t Pete, it’s Patrick,” Evangeline corrected her, resenting the sulkiness she could hear in her own voice. “And I think if you actually sat down and talked with him, you’d agree on more things than not.” 

“Maybe,” said Thelma sceptically. 

“And he hasn’t been _dumped_, because…”

“Because you absolutely, positively, one hundred percent are not dressing up for a night on the town with your new improved boyfriend. I see.” 

“_No_. It’s…it’s not like that. It’s someone I met at the bookstore. She’s…” 

“_She_?” Thelma quickly ditched her own book and through various contortions managed to roll onto her front, grinning excitedly at Evangeline as she regarded her over the tops of her round, wire-rimmed glasses. “You mean it’s a new _girl_friend…? Welcome to the home team, sister!” 

“No, nothing like that.” Evangeline knew she must be blushing; it was her curse, and Thelma knew exactly how to make it happen too. “I don’t even believe in monogamous relationships. They’re a form of ownership.” 

“Oh yeah, I was forgetting,” Thelma teased. “You’re into _free lurve_, baby. You know, don’t you, that free love just means the men get to fuck whoever they want and the women get called uptight if they’re not okay with being shared around like a pack of smokes?” 

“That’s not what it means at all,” Evangeline protested. “It’s actually a very beautiful thing.” 

“Hmm, sure. When was the last time you saw a gay hippie, huh? And I don’t mean the girls making out so the guys can watch. Or a hippie who wasn’t white and middle-class, come to think of it?” 

“Why do you have to put out such negative vibes the whole while? It’s a real drag.” 

Thelma’s grin powered down to a gentler smile. “I just care about the kind of people you’re hanging around with, that’s all, because I care about you. I’m your friend too, remember?” 

“Yeah.” Evangeline returned the smile. “I know you are.” 

Thelma was quiet for a moment, still smiling, before she added, very sincerely: “You look a million dollars, by the way. I hope you have a good time, wherever you’re not really going.” 

“Thanks.” Evangeline removed her red hooded coat from the hanger on the back of the door and pulled it on. There was a jar half full of water on the night stand between the two beds. She took the small bunch of flowers that stood in it. She had sneakily picked them this afternoon from the garden in the residential quad. She did not know what type they were, but she liked their droopy blue and purple petals and furry yellow centres. 

“You never used to take _Pete_ flowers,” Thelma commented. She was getting the name wrong deliberately now, Evangeline was sure. 

She gave her a backward glance as she stepped out into the hallway. “See you later.” 

“Alligator,” Thelma replied automatically. It had been their private joke almost as long as they had been roommates. “I won’t wait up, huh?” 

It was fully dark by the time Evangeline cut through from Broadway onto Amsterdam Avenue. She could hear police sirens wailing somewhere close by as the crowds thinned out and she walked alone beneath the towering fake-Gothic bulk of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. It loomed over the surrounding streets, a mountain of columns and buttresses and stained-glass windows. She had read somewhere that it was one of the largest churches in the world. They had started building it nearly eighty years ago and still had not finished when World War Two brought construction to a stop. 

There was a faint glow of candlelight behind the cathedral’s huge round front window, but also graffiti daubed and sprayed on the side of the enormous front steps leading up to its great arched doorways. By the light of the streetlamps, Evangeline could see colourful flowers and a large peace sign outlined shakily in white paint next to the words “MAKE LOVE NOT WAR.” She wondered whether that had been left here by someone she knew. 

And then she noticed the man slumped motionless in the deep shadow between the steps and the sidewalk. He might have been asleep, or maybe just blind drunk, swaddled in layers of worn-out clothing with a brown liquor store bag clutched in his hand. She fumbled under her coat, where she kept her purse slung around her body just in case. The man did not speak or stir, not even when she dropped a rattling handful of change into the tin cup beside him. 

New York, New York. She had been a naïve small-town girl when she first arrived here, and shocked by the crime and poverty, the dirty crumbling buildings, she saw every day. Even here on the Upper West Side, it was not unusual to see piles of uncollected garbage or condemned, boarded up apartment houses. She knew a lot of other neighbourhoods were much worse, and that nobody with the money or power to do anything about it gave a damn. She had soon grown used to it. That was the worst part. And then one day she had come across a group of young people her own age sitting on a grassy lawn in Central Park, laughing and singing as if they did not have a care in the world. They had explained to her that things did not have to be the way they were now. 

She looked down at the flowers in her hand. Just like those young people, they seemed so bright and full of life compared to the world of darkness around them. A world where it was easier to get a gun than an abortion, where men could orbit the moon but millions of people did not have enough medicine or food, where Martin Luther King had to die while Dick Nixon got to sit in the Oval Office and where the profits of arms manufacturers came before either Vietnamese or American lives… A world like that had to change. It just had to. Everybody she knew, either at college or among the hippies in the park, agreed on that. They just disagreed on precisely how and into what. Thelma could sneer all she liked at the flowerchildren and their gentle, free-spirited ways. At least they were living their ideas instead of just talking about them in classrooms or political meetings. They were trying to build a new world, a happy, colourful world of freedom and peace and love, cured of the violence and insanity of the one that existed now. 

It was about a twenty-five-minute walk from Barnard to the address Katya had given her over the phone last night. Evangeline found herself standing in front of a five-storey brownstone on West 104th Street, a few blocks and a planet away from the writing on the cathedral wall or the man and his tin cup. It was very clearly not the sort of place where somebody lived if they did not have money, but then again, she supposed people who did not have money did not go shopping for rare antique books either. 

She put a foot on the first step of the building’s front porch. And stopped. 

She thought again about the homeless man and the police sirens and the dirty streets, and wondered whether coming here tonight made her a hypocrite. If she really believed in changing the world, maybe she should go and find Patrick and the others instead. She knew the different squats and crash pads where they might be at this time of night. They didn’t need any fancy apartment building; they could just get high and listen to music together and later maybe… 

She almost turned back. But then, she remembered the shiver she had felt as Katya’s cold hand closed around hers, the butterflies that had clamoured in her belly. She took the first step, and then the second. And by the time she reached the building’s front door she was feeling the same thing all over again. She did not know exactly what she expected, or hoped for, tonight, only that she wanted very much to see that strange, intriguing woman again…and that Katya, excitingly and scarily, seemed to want to see her too. 

She was surprised to find the poorly-lit lobby stinking of stale cigarette smoke, which seemed to be coming from the half-open receptionist’s window to one side of the entrance. There was an older woman sat on the other side of it with her hair in curlers and another cigarette dangling from her mouth. She seemed engrossed in the latest issue of _TV Guide_. 

“Um…hello…?” said Evangeline as she approached the window. “Ma’am…?” 

“I’m the conci_oige_,” the woman informed her without taking out the cigarette or looking up from the magazine. Her voice was a gravelly nicotine rasp. “Whaddaya want?” 

“Um… I’m here to visit my friend in Apartment Four.” 

The woman glanced up at her through thick, cat-eye glasses. She did not appear too keen on what she saw. “Huh, her? Figures.” She especially seemed to disapprove of the flowers Evangeline was holding. “Go on up; she’s in.” 

“Thank you,” said Evangeline as she made for the stairs. 

The fourth-floor landing was even darker than the lobby, but at least it smelled of polish instead of old tobacco. Evangeline did not know whether the woman had called up to let Katya know she was on her way, but the apartment door opened a split second after her first tentative knock. 

“Evangeline.” Katya stood smiling in the doorway. She wore a plain black sweater and skirt and was barefoot, without makeup or jewellery, her face even paler and her hair even wilder than in the store the other night. Evangeline suddenly felt ridiculously overdressed. 

“Hi, uh, Katya, I…” 

Casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Katya took Evangeline by the shoulders and lightly kissed her, first on one cheek and then the other. Her lips were as soft and cold as her hands. Evangeline’s heart jumped, an electric jolt spreading through her body. “I’m so glad you could make it,” said Katya, ushering her over the threshold into the apartment’s mostly bare foyer. “Please, do come in.” 

“Yeah, um…” Evangeline was too flustered to shape a coherent greeting. She let Katya close the door behind her and take her coat. There was a picture on the wall in front of her; a small, highly stylised painting of a robed woman with a baby in her lap. The colours were dark and muted from long years of dust and smoke; the painting’s only bright parts were the mother and child’s circular gold-leaf halos. An icon, she realised, as found in Orthodox churches. 

“Mmm,” said Katya, her voice providing another jolt to bring Evangeline back to the here and now, “that perfume you’re wearing…” Evangeline was not sure whether or not she was making fun of her. “What’s it called?” 

“It’s…um, I don’t remember.” She did not want to tell Katya its name was Wild Vixen and the drugstore charged one dollar eighty for the large size bottle. “The, the lady downstairs, she…” 

“Joan?” Katya gave a snort of amusement as she hung the coat on the stand beside the door. The long leather coat she had been wearing the other night was on one of the other hooks. “Isn’t she a character?” She turned to face her guest again. “You look lovely tonight, Evangeline. Very…red.” 

“Um…thank you, uh…” 

“Now sleeps the crimson petal,” Katya recited, her tone light and playful, “now the white; nor waves the cypress in the palace walk…” 

“Wh-where’s that from?” Evangeline asked. 

“It’s by Tennyson.” 

She finally remembered the flowers and awkwardly held them out. “I, I brought you these.” 

“_Oh_.” Katya pressed a hand to her heart, a complex mixture of emotions chasing each other across her face. She seemed genuinely touched. “For me? Oh, _lastochka moya_, you shouldn’t have.” She took the flowers, and as she did her fingers brushed against Evangeline’s, making her flinch. “I’m sorry, I know I have cold hands. It’s a condition.” 

“I’ve heard about that,” Evangeline volunteered. “It’s poor circulation, isn’t it?” 

For some reason, Katya seemed to think that was funny. “Yes, something like that.” 

“You know what they say; cold hands, warm heart.” 

That just made Katya laugh again, but not unpleasantly or mockingly. She raised the flowers to her nose. “They also say irises have no scent, but…” 

“Is that what they are?” Evangeline blurted and then felt stupid. “I, I just…liked the colour.” 

“They’re beautiful,” Katya decided. “I’ll get some water for them. I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of beverages; I don’t…drink, really, but I think there may still be some tea in the kitchen. Do you like tea, Evangeline?” 

“Yeah, sure. I like tea.” 

“Good.” Katya sniffed the flowers again, then stepped towards one of the doors leading off the foyer. “Why don’t you go through?” she suggested, indicating Evangeline should use a different door. “I’ll be there in a second.” 

Evangeline opened the door and stepped into the next room, still feeling slightly dazed, berating herself for not knowing more about poetry or botany or medical conditions. When she saw what was on the other side of the door, she snapped out of it in an instant. In fact, she could not help but give a little gasp. 

The dorm room she shared with Thelma would have fit into one corner of the large, sparsely furnished living space in which she now found herself. Heavy burgundy velvet curtains covered the tall windows on the street side and the illumination from the ornate brass floor lamps gave everything a slightly yellowish tint. The high, moulded plaster ceiling and parquet floor looked as if they had been here as long as the building itself. The green-upholstered armchairs and couch and the densely-patterned Persian rug looked nearly as old, not that Evangeline had the slightest idea about antiques other than books. There was a faint burnt-perfume smell in the air that may have been old joss sticks, and then again maybe not. It wasn’t Mary-Jane, anyway; she absolutely knew what that smelled like. None of these things were what had provoked her reaction. 

Apart from the door and the cold, empty fireplace facing it, the three walls without windows were filled by shelves upon shelves of books. 

Almost involuntarily, Evangeline drifted over to the nearest bookcase and started to examine the densely packed rows of spines. There was a lot of old leather and gilt lettering, and that same elderly paper smell Katya had remarked upon at the bookstore. And some of the titles those gilt letters spelled out: _Picatrix_, _Calendarium Naturale Magicum Perpetuum_, _The Book of Abramelin_, _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum_… 

“Do any of those…pique your interest?” Katya asked, from very close behind her. Evangeline almost jumped. 

“Some of these books…” She shook her head helplessly as she glanced back at Katya. “I mean, I’ve read _about _them, but I never thought…” 

Katya seemed pleased by this reaction. She had put the flowers in a small glass vase and filled it with water. Evangeline could hear the faint sound of a kettle boiling in what she assumed must be the kitchen next door. “We could look at some of them together if you’d like.” 

“Could we?” Evangeline breathlessly ran her eyes over the shelves again, not knowing where to start, reaching out a hand but not daring to touch. 

“Of course.” 

“Did you buy all these?” Evangeline asked, incredulously, her eyes following Katya carrying the vase across the room. 

“Only a few.” A table stood near the wall of books opposite the windows, just as old in style and appearance as all the other furniture. Katya very carefully set the vase down upon it. “Most, I acquired from colleagues who share my interests, either through barter or for services rendered.” As she spoke, she was busily arranging the flowers with slender, nimble fingers. “Some, I…inherited, you might say.” 

Services rendered? Evangeline wondered exactly what kind of work Katya did. “You know, I really like your apartment.” 

Katya looked up from her task, clearly pleased by this as well. “I like it too. It’s my little haven. I find I need to be alone sometimes, away from my…contemporaries, all of their gossips and intrigues.” 

“I understand,” said Evangeline, thinking that described much of life on campus pretty well. “Sometimes I want to be alone too.” 

Katya smiled at her again, and Evangeline felt another little flutter inside. “But not alone all the time.” 

“No, not all the time.” 

“I adore flowers,” Katya announced as she continued to fuss with them. “They always make me happy…but sometimes they make me sad too. Such beautiful, dead things…” She spoke slowly, distractedly, as if talking to herself. “That’s the sad part; even in water, from the moment they’re cut their beauty starts to wither and fade.” 

“It withers and fades anyway,” Evangeline observed, “if you give it enough time. Everything does.” 

Katya suddenly seemed to notice her again. “That’s true. When I was a girl, I used to press flowers, between the pages of books. They can last for such a long time that way. Not forever, because nothing really lasts forever, but for a long time. And they almost look like they’re still alive…until you notice how flat and dry they are.” She regarded Evangeline very steadily and seriously. “They have the illusion of life, but they’re still dead.” 

“Maybe it’s better to let them wither.” The conversation had taken a strange turn, Evangeline thought. As she had been at the bookstore, she was conscious that Katya seemed to be trying to tell her more than she was actually saying. “Just have the memory of their beauty instead of trying to preserve it. Maybe that’s more real, somehow.” 

“Maybe it is,” Katya agreed, finally leaving the irises in peace. “Did you really not know what kind of flowers these were?” 

“No.” 

“Well, they were a good choice.” She pointed to a large volume on one of the shelves near the table. “I’ll go and get your tea, but why don’t you have a look at that while I’m gone?” 

Evangeline watched her glide gracefully out of the room again, then walked over to the shelf and took the large book down, opening it on the table. It was not a book of magic like the ones she had been looking at, she realised as she read the title page: _The Language of Flowers_, published in 1884. She gingerly turned the thick, glossy pages; each one had a meticulous watercolour illustration of a different flower as well as text explaining its meaning and symbolism. 

“Have you found the iris yet?” Katya asked, once again managing to enter the room without Evangeline noticing. She had a glass of steaming orange-brown liquid in an engraved silver holder that looked like another antique. She placed that on the table too, a cautious distance from the book. Evangeline noticed she had not made any tea for herself. 

“Here.” She eventually found the right page. The painted flower was slightly different from the ones she had picked, but obviously of a very similar type. ““Iris,”” she read aloud. ““_Fleur-de-Lis_, the emblem of France…”” She saw Katya intently scrutinising her from across the table. “It says it also symbolises the value of friendship and can be used to express one’s compliments.” She found herself smiling too, because that had been exactly her intention in presenting them. “So yeah, I guess I got lucky with those.” 

“There’s no such thing as luck,” Katya replied. “Sometimes things happen that cannot be explained, but anyone who has studied the Hermetic arts knows they do not happen randomly. As for symbolism, even twee Victorian flower symbolism…well, _lastochka_, I’m sure you understand how important that can be too…for the magical practitioner.” 

“That’s what I’ve read.” Evangeline turned another few pages, entranced by the deep colour and fine detail of the pictures. She glanced over at Katya again. She was starting to feel a little more comfortable now, a little bolder. “So, what does that mean?” she asked, as coolly as she could. “La-stotch-ka…?” She was sure her pronunciation was off. “You called me that before too.” 

“Oh.” Katya seemed embarrassed for a moment. “I can sometimes be a little overfamiliar. Force of habit. It’s…it’s the name of a bird; I’m not quite sure what it’s called in English. Swallow? Sparrow? But, really, er…” She hesitated. “Really it means “darling,” “sweetheart;” something like that. I’m sorry, I…” 

“It’s okay,” Evangeline told her. “I like it. It’s Russian, right, like your name? And the other night when you left the store you said “dasvidaniya.”” 

“_Do svidaniya_,” Katya corrected her, but fondly, using a much stronger accent than she had then. 

“I know that’s Russian too, from, well…” She felt herself cringe again. “I used to watch _The Man from U.N.C.L.E_.” She saw the blank look that received from Katya. “The TV show, I mean.” 

“I don’t get to see much television.” 

“That’s the only time you ever hear about Russia,” Evangeline said. “Either in spy movies, or politicians on the news talking up the Communist threat to justify all their wars.” 

“Don’t worry,” Katya told her, “I can assure you I am not a Red under the bed.” They both laughed at that. “Thank God. I was born in Russia,” she went on, “but I came to America aboard a huge ship when I was still only a girl. To start a new life, my father said. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”” She paused again, and Evangeline saw that hint of sadness in her expression once more. “What I know of my homeland is what I remember from those days…and the _ikona_ hanging in the hall.” 

“I saw it,” Evangeline confirmed. “It looks old.” 

“My grandmother doted on that thing. It’s one of the very few things I still have from when I was young.” Katya fell silent for a few seconds, then, staring at something far beyond the walls of books, before giving a sudden shake of her head. “It all seems so long ago now.” 

“It can’t be that long ago. You’re not much older than I am.” 

Katya seemed to think that was funny too. “It’s very flattering that you think that.” 

“Anyway, Russian’s a very beautiful-sounding language,” Evangeline said, and meant it. “I wish I knew more languages. I picked up a little French in high school, and I’ve been trying to learn Spanish, but…” She stopped, then added, self-consciously: “I bet you can speak a few different languages.” 

Katya shrugged modestly. “A few.” She came around the table, standing very close to Evangeline to gently close the flower book. She returned it to its place before moving on to another, higher shelf in the next bookcase over. “And I agree with you about the sound of Russian, but then I would. I have some Russian poetry here; Pushkin, Tyutchev… And some poetry in English, for that matter. Do you like Walt Whitman?” 

Evangeline nodded, thinking back to high school English classes. “I do.” 

“Oh, and here’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” Katya took down another book, smaller and more compact than the flower compendium, with faded blue cloth covers. She deftly flicked through it until she found what she was looking for, then handed it to Evangeline, still open. 

Evangeline read aloud again, as Katya seemed to want her to do: ““Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me…”” 

“That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw you tonight,” Katya informed her, with that same captivating hint of bashfulness. “The crimson petal.” 

“You’ll make me blush again,” said Evangeline. “I do that all the time as it is.” 

“It suits you,” said Katya. 

Another silence fell over the room, but this time the only thing Katya was staring at was Evangeline. Evangeline felt that electric tingle again, the butterflies, the prickling at the back of her neck…and she liked how it felt. She looked down at the page because it was easier than meeting Katya’s eyes, and the closing lines of Tennyson’s poem seemed to leap out at her: 

_So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip; Into my bosom and be lost in me…_

She was not brave enough to read those out loud. 

“How do you say that in Russian?” she asked instead. “Crimson petal?” 

“Hmm.” Katya mulled the question for a moment. “That would be…_bagrovyy lepestok_.” 

Evangeline tried to repeat what she had heard: “Bagrovy lepastock?” 

“Close enough,” said Katya. “Or you could say _malinovyy lepestok_.” 

“I like the first one.” 

“So do I. _Moy bagrovyy lepestok_.” Katya took the book back and once again their hands touched, making Evangeline shudder. She was certain Katya had done it on purpose. For an instant, their faces were very close to one another, and Evangeline thought Katya was going to kiss her, but not on the cheeks this time. She waited for it, holding her breath, her whole body bristling with anticipation, but then the instant passed and Katya had turned away again, back towards the bookshelves. 

Evangeline was not sure whether she was relieved or disappointed. 

Katya returned Alfred, Lord Tennyson to his rightful place, and stood with her back to Evangeline for a few seconds, keeping very quiet and still. Evangeline thought perhaps she too was trying to pull herself together after that dangerous moment. 

When she turned to face her again, Katya seemed perfectly calm and composed, as if nothing had happened. Evangeline started to think she might have imagined it, but deep down she knew that was not true. 

“It’s getting late,” said Katya briskly, nodding at the clock ticking on the mantel above the fireplace. “If we’re going to do some serious reading then we should get to it. Go and pick out one of those grimoires over there and we’ll see what we will see.” 

Evangeline nodded slowly, and went over to the first bookcase she had looked at, trying to pretend she was as calm as Katya was pretending to be. 

And that was how it all began. 

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s probably worth clarifying that the “present night” scenes in the fic are also taking place during the pre-canon timeframe…at least in these early chapters. I think it’s a safe bet that meeting Jasper and his coterie probably changed Eva’s routine and outlook considerably, for better or worse. I’m also wildly guessing here as to her normal feeding habits. We know she will only feed from willing donors, preferably those whose blood is, um, chemically-altered. It is also implied in S3 Ep7 that she only rarely feeds directly from mortals, although bagged blood really is a poor, and not permanently viable, substitute for most Kindred. Given her apparently mostly solitary existence up at Griffith Park prior to meeting Jasper, I’m also left wondering how exactly she finds donors at all. I’m really not sure whether you can actually get high from drinking drugged blood that has been stored for a while, but then again vampires in this setting definitely work on magical rather than science-fictional principles, so maybe they can. ;)


	3. To Grandmother's House We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are very much on the cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: references to violence against women, drug use and addiction issues, and character use of insensitive language re mental health. Slightly revised 06.07.2020.

When she has finished cleaning up after her meal, she decides it is about time she got dressed and went outside. She is burning moonlight and there are tasks she needs to complete.

She returns to her bedroom, opening the battered tin trunk at the foot of her futon and kneeling to sort through the layers of clothing neatly packed within. She removes shirts and skirts and shawls and dresses, considering each in turn before laying them aside and continuing her search. Most of her clothes are what is apparently referred to as “vintage” in modern nights, but would have been considered daringly stylish among the crowd she spent her youth with. She assumes they were found in thrift stores or flea markets, although it is only an assumption. Opening hours, and the practical difficulties she has blending in with the crowd, mean she rarely has the opportunity to shop in person. She has heard of something called “buying online,” but is not sure it is really for her.

She is looking for something comfortable and informal. She is not expecting visitors tonight. Or any night, for that matter, although very occasionally she finds her expectations confounded. She eventually settles on a white pleated maxi skirt and a white cotton vest decorated with white applique flowers.

It is her colour, after all.

She lays out the selected garments on her bed and returns the others to the trunk. Before she puts them on, she crosses to the dressing table. There are a few items arranged upon it; her jewellery box and makeup bag; a cheap plastic hairbrush; a wreath of small dried flowers just the right size to perch upon her head; the slick, rectangular object that is what people tonight mean when they talk about a phone. And then there are her gloves.

She calls them gloves, but in fact they are lacy, gossamer constructions of delicate snowy lace, covering her wrists and the backs of her hands, extending as far as her lower forearm and secured around each middle finger by a ring fastened to a short string of pearls. They are light, beautiful things that she found in… In a place she does not care to recall visiting, now. She can barely feel them when she has them on.

And they reek of blood.

Feeding has subdued her hunger for the time being, reducing it from something unbearable to a mild discomfort. That, and the warm, gentle glow of the diazepam, allow her to ignore the disturbing smell. As she picks up the gloves, the magic with which they are imbued almost crackles in her hand. If she exerted her powers of auspex just a little, she would see the invisible sigils burning bright against the white lace.

She carefully pulls the gloves on, first one hand and then the other, and as she does, she recites the familiar incantation:

“_Spirituum caeli et terrae, dona mihi praesidium…_”

It is a simple working as these things go. She has done it so many times by now that it has become almost a reflex action. The real time and magical effort went into preparing the blood-chrism with which she drew the wards, marking out the sigils with mathematical precision.

“_Claudere oculos vigilia,_ _tactu manus ardebit_…”

Some nights, it seems a tedious chore, but even then, she does not dare venture outside her haven’s protections without completing it.

Her personal wards in place, she quickly dresses in the skirt and vest. Undergarments, in her opinion, are for formal occasions and squares. She keeps her various shoes stacked under the dressing table; a pair of well-worn sandals will do for tonight. She sits in front of the mirror, willing herself to look her reflection in the eye. It never gets easier, seeing herself as she is, as she was made to be, but after many years she has learned to own it. She drags the brush through her tangled hair, with difficulty at first, but soon in smooth, even strokes. Then she considers makeup. She does not bother with it every night, but as with the white clothing she almost always wears, when she does her intention is not to conceal her condition so much as emphasise it.

To be ashamed of her appearance, to try to hide it, she tells herself, would be exactly what _he_ would want. It would be an acknowledgement of his power over her. Instead, she wears the hex he cast on her like a badge of honour. A punishment ceases to be a punishment once you come to embrace it.

She decides against makeup in the end. She is dressing down tonight. She contents herself with twisting her hair into a loose braid, laying it forward over her right shoulder, and then places the flower wreath upon her head like a crown. It rustles on contact with her white curls. The blooms have kept their shapes and colours, but are as brittle and desiccated as straw.

“_Such beautiful, dead things…_”

That reminds her to take off the ring she put on earlier. That is a private treasure. She never wears it out of doors. She takes a last wistful look at its Cyrillic inscription before secreting it back in the jewellery box’s hidden compartment. She replaces it with half a dozen other rings, slotting them onto her fingers more or less at random, with a selection of bangles and bracelets and a couple of pendants for good measure. Her jewellery is part of her armour, in more ways than one. Some of it, too, is warded against magical attacks and scrying spells, the incantations cut permanently into the metal.

She is not sure which is worse; that she genuinely needs such protections, or that they might not be enough if _he_ did find her here. He is very old, his vitae potent, and the powers he commands, even just the ones she has seen at first hand, are…formidable.

She rises and takes a few steps back so she can examine herself in the mirror. She moves from side to side to make her long skirt swish. Yes, that will do nicely. When she sees herself like this, she does not see poor dead Evangeline, or even the thing she is now. She sees a role for her to play, a mask for her to hide behind. She sees the White Witch of Griffith Park; a mythical being, mysterious and ethereal, immune to the world and its dangers, able to face down and master the things she cannot.

She has taken a step towards the door before she remembers to return to the table and pick up the so-called phone. She slides it into one of her vest pockets. She does not like the thing, and barely uses it herself, but it is how the man who sardonically refers to himself as her “talent rep” makes contact and refers those in need of her thaumaturgical services.

She has a very small, very carefully vetted clientele. None of them know anything about her apart from the fact that she exists and has the skills to help them. The fewer people who know even that, the better as far as she is concerned. There was a time when only the man on the other end of the phone and his most trusted servants knew, but events made that unsustainable. She has made the best of it.

Her clients are mostly rich, mostly powerful, occasionally generous. She has little use for money, but there are still things she needs. Most of her possessions, most of her books, records, furniture and clothing, the regularly-replenished stock of blood in her refrigerator, have come to her by way of payment. Her main business is potions, as well as wards and protections for property and individuals. She performs the occasional more complex ritual when a particularly dramatic effect is required, and has even carried out an exorcism or two. Los Angeles is a relatively young city, but its fast, colourful history has left it full of ghosts. She refuses to provide curses or poisons, or to enchant weapons, although she is sure she would find plenty of custom if she did. Her more thoughtful clients ask her in advance what she would like as recompense. Sometimes she tells them to surprise her.

All of them pay up. Every Kindred who has survived their fledgling years knows well the wisdom of settling one’s dues promptly and in full. Accepting uncompensated favours is something for the foolish or the desperate, because nothing is ever really for free.

She remembers the first time that was explained to her in plain words, although she had worked it out for herself long before then. She remembers that dark, rainy night on Staten Island many years ago, punk rock blaring angrily from a boombox and the man with the mauve mohawk sneering under the naked lightbulb:

_“I told you, sugarcube; I’m in the doing favours for people business…”_

Occasionally she feels a frisson of amusement, or even satisfaction, at the idea of even some of the Barons of Los Angeles fearing to place themselves in her debt. The notion that she too is powerful in her own way, that Kindred speak of “the Witch” in hushed whispers in Downtown Anarch hangouts and Hollywood Hills mansions alike, is sometimes a gratifying one.

Until, that is, she reminds herself that is not who she is…or who she would ever want to be. Any power she has, she thinks as she again sees the spectral figure in the mirror, was bought at far too dear a price. Any notoriety she may have gained just makes it more likely _he_ will find her one night. She does not know exactly what would happen after that, only that her final death might be the least unpleasant possibility.

As for the appeal of wielding influence, of being feared … Many Kindred have been seduced by that. It is just another way for the Beast to tempt and corrupt them.

Even after feeding, she can still feel it slinking and squirming deep inside her. It will be back. It always comes back. Like every other of her kind, she will spend the rest of her undeath struggling to control it, for however many years or decades or centuries that may prove to be. It is that, or be devoured by it, to become a mindless animal driven only by hunger. Some Kindred seek a remedy in religion or philosophy. Some, perilously, seek to harness the Beast, to make use of it rather than deny it, to become functioning monsters free of human weakness or morality. Most, though, like herself, strive to cling to the dwindling scraps of their humanity, hoarding values and memories and connections to people and places as if they were the most precious of treasures.

That is exactly what they are, she reflects, casting an eye over her shelves of books and her music collection, reminding herself of her long-cherished anguish.

Whatever method they choose to fight the Beast, they all lose to it in the end; usually temporarily, sometimes forever. And it never stops goading and cajoling until they do. She knows there is only one thing that can satisfy it completely, and even then, only for a time.

It is the one thing she has always promised herself she will never, ever do.

She also knows that one night, maybe far in the future but maybe tomorrow night, maybe even tonight, she will break that promise. Eventually, as she grows ever older and the potency of her own vitae waxes, she will not be able to subsist on stored blood any longer, and then…? Then, it will become much, much harder for her to keep her worst instincts in check. _Something_ will happen, sooner or later. She will find herself in a time and place where the compulsion will simply prove too great.

It was only when she had felt and heard the Beast for herself that she fully understood her very first encounter with it, or that she had even encountered it at all. She understands so many things now that poor Evangeline could never have grasped or even imagined. There are so many things she wants to say about them, but anybody who would have cared to listen is long gone by now.

She switches off the lamp and walks back through her workroom, bound for the outer door and the world beyond. As she does, she recalls how sometimes, when she was alive, she used to scare herself by thinking about death. She would think about how most of the things she did, that everybody did every day, anything anybody had ever done in human history or art or culture, were just to distract themselves from the reality that comes to everybody in the end. One day, she had told herself, it would come to her.

It did, but not how she had ever suspected it would. And then she learned there are worse things than dying, and they can be just as inevitable.

* * *

“Professor West wanted to know why you missed class yesterday.”

Evangeline finished brushing her hair, then immediately and artfully mussed it up a little. She wanted to look cool, but not like she was trying too hard. “What did you tell her?”

Thelma did not answer the question straight away, or raise her eyes from the huge pile of books and papers threatening to overflow the edges of her tiny desk. She did, however, keep laying on the guilt trip: “She was worried, said it wasn’t like you. And she was right. You’re normally teacher’s pet.”

“I got Jeannie’s notes,” Evangeline protested, critically assessing her reflection’s pale lipstick. “And I can catch up on the reading.”

“I told her you were sick,” Thelma continued, as if she had not heard. “Imagine if I’d told her you were still asleep because you’d snuck in at five a.m. after spending the night with your mysterious lover nobody’s met yet.”

“I have _not_ got a mysterious lover,” Evangeline muttered under her breath. She was annoyed at herself more than Thelma. Staying out so late when she had class in the morning had been a pretty dumb thing to do, but at the time…

She smiled to herself, remembering Katya’s expression of baffled glee on learning that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were in fact two completely different sets of people. How could anybody not know _that_?

She managed to snap herself out of the memory, rounding on Thelma. “I keep telling you…”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not like that. Sure it isn’t.” Thelma was looking straight back at her, with unnerving sincerity. “Seriously, Eva, this_ isn’t_ like you. Even when you were in deep with the hippie crowd…” “Eva,” rhyming with “never;” Evangeline got “Evie” or “Angie” from some of her friends, even “Red” from Patrick and the other hippies in the park, but Thelma was the only person who called her “_Eva_.” And then only when she was scolding her or seriously worried for her. “I mean, look, you’re going out again tonight. That’s, what, the third time this week?”

“So what? I can go out if I want.”

“Hey, I know what it’s like,” said Thelma. “Remember that thing I had with that blonde kid from Minnesota? You barely saw me for like half a semester. Young love, right? But…” She shrugged helplessly. “What about your classes? What about the exams, huh? You’re one of the few people I know who are here because they deserve to be, not because they’ve got folks who can afford the tuition. You’ve worked too hard and come too far to go screwing it all up now.”

Once again, Evangeline felt feckless and irresponsible. She thought about how proud her grandma had been when she got accepted to Barnard, first person in the family to go to college, but… “I know what I’m doing,” she insisted.

“I hope so,” said Thelma. She let out a sigh. “I fucking hope so. She must be a hell of a woman, anyway, whoever she is.”

“It’s…”

“Not like that. I know.” Thelma could scarcely have sounded more sceptical. “Still, I am genuinely curious to meet her, considering how she’s swept you off your feet.” She cracked a tiny smile as something seemed to occur to her. “You know, my book group are meeting tonight. We’re discussing Daly’s _The Church and the Second Sex_. Why don’t you bring your friend along? Could be fun.”

Evangeline shook her head. “I…I don’t think she’d…”

Thelma might even have been genuinely disappointed. “Oh, well, if you change your mind, it’s the usual time, usual place.” The smile died on her lips. “Take care out there tonight, though, okay? Did you see those two pigs strutting around campus earlier?”

“No.”

“They were here to talk to the Dean. Another woman got attacked last night, one of ours this time, a sophomore living over in Hewitt Hall. Got jumped walking down Riverside Drive after dark. How many is that now?”

“I don’t know.” Evangeline frowned. “I didn’t know there’d been any.” Although it was not exactly uncommon to hear about things like that happening in New York.

“Yeah, there was that store clerk over on 112th Street the other week,” Thelma grimly related. “The two homeless women before that. This girl lived, just about. The others weren’t so lucky.”

“Shit.” Evangeline wondered how she could possibly not have heard about this before now. She had spent a lot of time with Katya over the past few weeks, she supposed, and had been trying her best to catch up on sleep and college work the rest of the time… But then another thought came creeping out of the back of her mind: “You’re not just saying this to try and make me stay in?”

“Hell, no!” Thelma was incredulous. “Misogynistic violence is not one of the topics I make a habit of joking about, thank you very much.”

“I’m sorry,” said Evangeline, sheepishly. “So…did they rob her? Or did they…?” She trailed off, skin crawling, unwilling to complete that last thought.

“No, thankfully.” Thelma’s expression was one of righteous fury. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if there _was_ some kind of weird sex angle. The fuzz said the guy messed her up real bad. She’d lost a hell of a lot of blood.” She clenched her fists until the knuckles stood out white. “Probably one of those raincoat-wearing pervs who hang around the porno theatres off Times Square, hopped up on his own curdled testosterone.”

“Probably.” Evangeline felt sick. For a moment, she seriously considered doing the sensible thing and staying in, maybe cracking some books before turning in early like a responsible adult. Only for a moment, though.

Thelma gave Evangeline that sincere, searching look again as she put on her red coat. “What I’m saying is, watch yourself out there because it’s getting worse. There are some real psychos on the streets these days.”

“I’m always careful when I’m out.”

“Yeah, I bet the girl from Hewitt Hall said that too.”

There was a convoy of yellow cabs queuing impatiently at the crosswalk spanning Amsterdam Avenue, blasting their horns at straggling pedestrians and each other. Evangeline ignored them. She was too busy thinking as she followed the by-now familiar route beneath the cathedral’s hulking shadow. The last natural light had just faded from the faintly glowing city sky. The night was cool but not cold. Summer was on its way.

She was thinking about Katya, as she often did these days. Despite Thelma’s insinuations, nothing had actually happened between them yet. Instead, they spent their time together talking, about anything and everything, and studying old spell-books with a particular emphasis on medieval and renaissance Hermeticism. Sometimes, when they had had enough of that, Katya would read Russian or French or English poetry aloud while Evangeline pretended to enjoy the bitter, strangely floral-tasting tea she made for her. Katya always had a book in her hand during these recitals, and even turned the pages, but Evangeline very much got the impression she knew all the poems by heart. Even when she did not understand the language, she could tell what Katya was feeling from the tone of her voice; love, loss, longing, loneliness…

_“I whisper with my lips close to your ear,_

_I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.”_

Every so often, usually when Katya recited a line like that, there would be a moment of tension, a significant glance, a charge in the air between them like that very first night she had visited. So far, neither of them had plucked up the courage to do anything about it.

Not for the first time, Evangeline wondered exactly why she felt the way she felt about Katya. Why did their time together feel so magical and important, the world outside the apartment seeming to fade away like a dream? And why did Katya seem to feel the same way about her? She did not think she was that special, not compared to the interesting, exotic people Katya probably knew from…well, wherever she went when she was not with her.

Evangeline still had not seen Katya around college, despite her saying she sometimes did work at Barnard, had spotted Evangeline there sometime before their first meeting at the bookstore. She still had no idea what that work involved, or even exactly where Katya did it.

Maybe she would finally ask her about it tonight…?

She smiled to herself again, at the idea of Katya going to Thelma’s book group and probably being as politely bewildered by Second Wave Feminism as she seemed to be by the Beatles and the Stones. That was one of the things she liked most about her; that air she gave out of being someone who lived in a world of her own, but who was willing to let Evangeline spend time there too.

She supposed that was the real reason she was still evasive whenever Thelma asked about Katya. She liked the feeling of having a special secret, one that had nothing to do with the rest of her daily life, that she did not have to share with anybody else she knew. Visiting Katya was in some ways like being a kid again, like having an imaginary friend who just happened to be real. She had felt the same way about Patrick and the commune when she first met them, and she still loved them all, but they were all about sharing everything with everyone. She supposed she was just a little bit too selfish for that.

Katya was all hers.

She knew that was not true, though. She had seen one of Katya’s other friends coming down from the apartment one night just as she was going up; a young man about her own age, with a preppy look that had made her think he was probably a college student too. She had noticed a glazed expression in his eyes, an unsteadiness in his legs, as they had passed on the stairs without exchanging a word.

She did not know what he and Katya had been doing together to leave him like that, and she did not want to know. She had not mentioned meeting him. He was none of her business and she did not want to ruin things with Katya by getting all uptight and jealous. Katya had not been like that when Evangeline had told her about hanging out with the flowerchildren. If anything, she had seemed a little curious about the things they might get up to.

Besides, once Evangeline had been there in the apartment with her, the young man and everything else beyond the front door had not seemed that important anyway. Not much did.

She passed the cathedral’s grandiose front entrance, looking for the homeless guy she normally saw huddling beside the steps. She had even spoken to him once or twice, when he had been awake and lucid. One time, he had told her his name was Barney. He had said he used to be a Marine, and had left his sobriety at Khe Sanh. He was not here tonight, and it worried her.

The anti-war graffiti on the side of the steps had been painted over too. A new symbol had been emblazoned across the masonry in bold purple spray paint, obliterating the peace sign and cartoon flowers. It was vaguely similar to the Venus emblem on Thelma’s poster in their dorm room, but inverted so the circle was at the bottom while the cross that sprouted from it was spiked and hooked, making it look like some particularly cruel ancient weapon.

Was it some kind of sick anti-woman thing? Or a gang sign, maybe? Evangeline did not know, but something about it gave her the creeps. There were more crudely-painted spikes lining both the inside and outside of the circle. It resembled a child’s drawing of the sun, if the sun had a mouthful of pointed teeth.

As she hurried on her way, she wondered who could have painted the ugly, sinister thing and what it meant to them. Nothing good, she suspected.

_“There are some real psychos on the streets these days…”_

She was still a little shaken when she arrived at Katya’s building. Joan the concierge knew her by sight now, barely managing to tear her attention away from _TV Guide_ long enough to nod her through the lobby and up the stairs.

Evangeline knocked on Katya’s apartment door, and waited; one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three… That was unusual. Normally, Katya answered it more or less instantly. Sometimes, she even heard Evangeline on the stairs and was standing waiting when she turned onto the landing.

Evangeline knocked again, suddenly almost frantic, thinking dark, wordless thoughts about missing ex-Marines, evil-looking graffiti and that poor student from Hewitt Hall…

“Evangeline.” As soon as Katya opened the door, it was obvious something was not right. Normally, she greeted her visitor eagerly, hurrying her inside, asking questions, throwing out compliments. Tonight, she sounded tired, with none of her usual poise or playfulness. Evangeline thought she could see dark rings beneath her eyes.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, concerned. “You look… Are you sick?”

“I don’t get sick,” Katya curtly replied. She was still standing in the doorway, wrapped in a black towelling bathrobe, her arms folded defensively across her body. She made no effort to welcome Evangeline in. When Evangeline reached out a hand, she actually shrank away and then tried to look as if she had not.

“Then what’s wrong? Are you feeling…?”

Katya did not answer at once. She just held herself tighter, watching Evangeline from beneath heavy, hooded eyelids. For a second, Evangeline thought she was going to tell her to leave, and felt something like the familiar nervous flutter in her stomach, but colder, spikier, more desperate. She tried to think of something she might have said or done to offend Katya last time she was here. She had not _seemed_ upset when they last parted…

Then, however, Katya forced a thin, unconvincing smile. “Just…women’s troubles,” she murmured, uncomfortably. “I’m sure you know how it is.”

“_Oh_.” “_Women’s troubles_” was what Evangeline’s grandma would have called it too, probably in exactly the same embarrassed half-whisper. She supposed that _might _be an explanation. “Yeah, it can be rough. I don’t have as many problems with that since I went on the pill.” This remark won one of Katya’s blank stares, usually reserved for discussion of pop music or TV shows. “Do you want me to leave you alone tonight, then? If you’re not feeling too good, you probably don’t want…” She could hear herself starting to babble. “You should maybe just curl up in bed with a hot water bottle, or… I mean, we can meet up some other time if…”

Katya had lapsed into another long, pregnant pause. She looked as if she was debating something with herself, but in the end managed another smile. It did not reach her eyes. “No, please, _lastochka_, come inside.”

Evangeline made herself smile back. “All right.”

“So bright,” Katya commented as she hung Evangeline’s coat beside her own. For a moment, she sounded almost like her usual self. The virgin and child looked down on them both from the icon on the wall, with what Evangeline imagined to be general disapproval.

As she led the way into the library, Katya continued to talk, slightly too loudly and enthusiastically, as if determined to prove there was nothing seriously wrong with her: “I’d planned to meet with an…associate of mine tonight, before you got here. We were supposed to dine together, but he’s let me down. Something came up. No doubt it was important to him, but it’s quite tiresome all the same.”

“Yeah.” Evangeline wondered whether she was talking about the preppy young man or somebody else.

“And I don’t know about you, but when I’ve made plans and I can’t stick to them, it always leaves me out of sorts.” Katya gave a false little laugh. It sounded terrible. “And that on top of my other…difficulty.”

“People don’t think sometimes about the inconvenience they’re causing.”

“Quite so.” Katya stopped beside the table, where a chair had been placed on the side opposite the bookshelves. She was rubbing her hands up and down her folded forearms, bouncing on the balls of her feet, practically twitching.

“Seriously,” Evangeline asked her, “are you okay?” She had seen people acting like that before, in the park and other places, and not because they were on their period.

“I’m fine, _lastochka_.” Katya’s painted-on smile melted into something subtler and more secretive, almost an acknowledgment that she knew Evangeline knew her answer was probably a lie. “I’m fine. Really. You’ve just caught me at an inopportune moment.”

“Is there…anything I can get you?”

Katya seemed to debate that with herself too, before replying with a hint of coyness: “Just having you here makes me feel a little better.”

“Well, if there is anything…”

“Would you like some tea?” Katya suddenly asked.

“No thank you.” Evangeline could see cards scattered in complex arrangements across the tabletop. Some were face up; she recognised cups, wands, pentacles and a couple of brightly coloured major arcana. “You were reading the Tarot?”

“I do occasionally consult the cards for guidance.” As she spoke, Katya seemed to relax a little, her discomfort eased by her enthusiasm for her subject. “I know we’ve often referred to things like the Tarot as mere parlour games in our discussions of more arcane magicks, but…”

“But there’s no such thing as luck,” Evangeline recalled, “even in the turn of a card, and symbolism, in whatever form, should always be heeded by the magical practitioner.”

“Exactly right, my petal. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“I’m pretty sure you did say it.”

Katya regarded her with what Evangeline liked to think was genuine pride and affection. “You know, the very first time we spoke, I knew you would prove yourself an apt pupil.”

“Is that what I am?” she asked, tentatively, watching Katya’s face for a reaction. “Your pupil?”

Katya, however, pretended not to have heard the question. “Yes, even the Tarot can be useful as a tool for understanding, provided one bears in mind that the cards themselves are not so important as what they reveal to those who can look into them with true insight.” She glanced at the cards, and then back Evangeline, a thoughtful gleam in her eye. “I seem to recall you saying you’ve tried a reading or two yourself.”

Evangeline self-consciously spread her hands. “I’ve really only fooled around with them a couple of times. Artie had a pack in the store and…”

“Come, _lastochka_.” Katya nodded towards the table. “Pull up a chair and we’ll see what we will see. It may prove a distraction from…other cares.” When they were both seated, she gathered up the cards and handed the pack to Evangeline. “Now, the very oldest Tarots are Italian and date to the mid-Fifteenth Century, but tonight we are using the Rider-Waite deck, one of the more popular modern Tarots. What can you tell me about it?”

“Um…” Evangeline tried to remember her reading while she shuffled the deck. “It was first published in 1910 and was designed by the occultist A. E. Waite. Hey, we had some of his books in the store that night you came in.”

“I remember, _lastochka_.” Katya considered her shuffling for another few moments. “Now, if you want a meaningful answer from the cards, you must ask them a meaningful question. Do you have one in mind?”

Evangeline thought about it. “I just want to know… What does the future hold?”

“You could be a little more specific.”

“Well…” It really was like being in class. “Um, where will I be a year from now, ten years from now?”

Katya made that tiny half-shrugging gesture she used from time to time. “I suppose that will have to do. Try to concentrate on your question while you shuffle the cards.”

Evangeline did just that. When she had finished, she cut the cards and placed the deck back in front of Katya. She noticed how the other woman’s hands trembled as she picked it up and started dealing cards onto the table, face down. “I don’t recognise that spread,” she observed as she started to see the pattern Katya was laying out. “It looks a little like a Celtic Cross, but…”

“Oh, you won’t find this in any of those Tarot books Artie stocks.” Katya’s smile had that secretive edge to it again. “I learned this from…an old acquaintance, many years ago.” When she had completed the pattern, she laid the remaining cards aside. She paused for a moment, as if for dramatic effect, before extending a hand above the waiting spread. “Are you ready, Evangeline?”

Evangeline nodded. “Ready.”

Katya turned the first card.

It showed the painted image of an armoured knight, a skull grinning where his face should be. He was trampling kings and bishops and peasants alike beneath the hooves of his pale horse.

“Number thirteen of the major arcana,” said Katya with a frown. “Death.”

“Oh.”

“And despite the reassuring falsehoods of sideshow fortune tellers, it _does_ quite often mean death, destruction, decay…” Judging by the way she cut herself short, Katya had obviously noticed Evangeline’s expression of foreboding. “Don’t be afraid, _lastochka_. It can also signify a new beginning, an embarkation on a new journey.” Then, however, she considered the card a moment longer and her frown deepened. “It can stand for…transformation.”

Evangeline eventually broke the uncomfortable silence that fell over the room: “What’s the next card?”

Katya turned it over. This one depicted two figures wearing wreaths upon their heads, a winged lion hovering above them. They were toasting each another with golden chalices.

“What does that mean?” Evangeline asked.

“The Two of Cups?” Katya murmured uncertainly, turning the card over and over in her hands as if it confused her too. “Well…” She hesitated, before continuing with an air of helplessness. “See how the two people on the card are drinking together?

“What’s wrong?”

“Drinking… Drinking and swearing their undying devotion, one to the other. Pledging to…love one another forever.” Katya slowly shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” Evangeline repeated.

“No, nothing. Nothing, Evangeline.” Katya seemed to grow agitated again, the tremor in her hand speeding up as she almost brandished the card in front of her. “Some people, ignorant people, think that number six of the major arcana, The Lovers, is the most significant card when it comes to personal relationships, but they are wrong. Very wrong, _lastochka_.”

“They are?”

“Yes.” The volume and speed of Katya’s voice had increased too. “Remember, it is not the card that is important but what the practitioner sees in it. The Two of Cups speaks of a bond deeper than mere physical or romantic love. It speaks of something that can never be broken, never undone.” She dropped the card and sat very still for a short while until she was almost calm again. That calmness evaporated as soon as the turned over the next card.

“Nineteen,” Evangeline pointed out. “The Sun.”

“The Sun,” Katya echoed, edging back in her seat with an obvious shudder.

“Are you okay?”

“There are many who would tell you the Sun symbolises happiness and contentment; life, ambition, success…” Katya shook her head admonishingly. “Maybe that is so for some people, but remember…the sun also _burns_. It is fire and destruction, wasting and scorching the Earth.”

“I hadn’t really thought of it like that before.”

“Oh yes, Evangeline. The sun is pitiless. It will not be denied.” Katya gave her a very strange sidelong glance before pointing to the other cards that had been revealed. “Now, consider the context, the position of the cards relative to one another in time and space. According to some systems, the suit of Cups is aligned to the West, and also to the element of Water. In combination with Death, which as we have established can be symbolic of new beginnings…”

“A journey?” Evangeline wildly guessed, thinking back to Katya’s earlier explanation. “A journey to the west? But water… A journey west to the ocean? To the West Coast?” She looked at Katya excitedly. “You know, ever since the Summer of Love I’ve thought about maybe going to California; Los Angeles, San Francisco… I mean, Haight-Ashbury’s where the whole counterculture got started. Do you think the cards are saying I should…?”

“Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it?” Katya still seemed distracted, troubled, whether by whatever was wrong with her or what was on the cards Evangeline could not say. “Not just seeing what is in the card, or behind the card, but understanding it.” She tapped the Sun again with a glossy black fingernail. “When we consider this card too as part of the context… What happens when the Sun journeys into the west and finds the ocean?”

Something about Katya’s tone made Evangeline’s excitement turn to creeping uneasiness. “It goes down.”

“That’s right, my petal, it goes down.” Katya fidgeted in her chair, her hands finding each other on the tabletop, pale fingers tangling together as if struggling to keep each other still. She was almost whispering to herself, as if having difficulty comprehending what she was seeing: “Transformation…bonding…_sunset_…” When she looked at Evangeline again, there was genuine fear in her eyes. “Oh, no, _lastochka moya_. No.”

Evangeline felt an icy chill on the back of her neck, but there was no draught in the room. “Are you all right?”

Katya’s hand wavered as she reached for the next card, as if she was scared to turn it.

“Number nine, the Hermit.” Evangeline peered down at the dark, hooded figure on the card, at how carefully it seemed to be picking its way through the night. For some reason she could not explain, it seemed more significant than it should, like a nagging memory she could not quite bring to mind.

Like déjà vu.

Katya rose from the table, her chair’s legs squeaking loudly across the wooden floor, abruptly enough to make Evangeline start. She jumped to her feet too, watching as Katya paced around the room almost frantically, hugging herself again, unable to stand still for more than an instant. She finally came to a sort of rest near the couch, turning to face Evangeline just as she was about to cross the room with some vague idea of taking her in her arms, trying to comfort her. Instead, Evangeline froze in her tracks.

“I don’t think I’ve told you,” said Katya, taking a hesitant step back towards her. “Since I met you… Believe it or not, Evangeline, I don’t have many friends. I _know _a lot of people, but I wouldn’t call most of them…friends.”

She took another step and raised a hand in Evangeline’s general direction, but then she stopped and lowered it again.

“Having you as a friend means a great deal to me, Evangeline.” She was looking at her almost pleadingly now, as if willing her to understand the meaning behind her words. “You mean a great deal to me. You’re so young and beautiful, and full of life, but it’s more than that. You’re a good person, Evangeline. I’d almost forgotten what one of those was like, but then I met you. You have a good heart. I don’t want to hurt you. Believe me, I really, truly, do not want to hurt you.”

She took a third step, to within an arm’s length of Evangeline, gazing at her, searching her face for…something. Again, Evangeline fought the urge to rush to her, to pull her into a hug and tell her everything would be okay. She had no idea how Katya might react to that. It seemed to take Katya a physical effort to turn away again. She sank onto the nearby couch, clasping her hands together and drawing in her knees and elbows.

“Katya…” Evangeline sat down beside her, trying not to notice the way she edged away when she did. “Katya, it’s okay.”

“I’ve been stupid, Evangeline. So stupid and selfish…”

“I…” Evangeline felt her eyes sting. She blinked the mistiness away, trying to speak around the ice cube that had appeared in her throat. “What you just said… You…you mean a lot to me too, Katya. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“It will pass.” Katya sat hunched forward, her face a picture of misery and self-loathing. “All things pass. _Sic transit gloria mundi_. I’m sorry. I should never have started this. Any of this. I lied to myself. I always lie to myself. I thought…” She made a sound that might have been a sob, but her eyes remained dry. “I thought it could all be different this time. I told myself a fairy tale about how it could be if only I wished hard enough. I told myself… I’ve been so selfish, Evangeline. I’ve, I’ve…_lured_ you here, and, and…”

“_No_…” Evangeline reached for Katya’s hand; Katya pulled away on the first attempt, but then relented and let her take it. She felt even colder than usual. She was _shivering_… “Katya, are you…are you hurting?” She knew the signs. Some of Patrick’s less reputable friends were into heavier things than weed or even acid. That stuff, and what it did to people, scared her nearly as much as Katya was scaring her right now. She thought about the young man on the stairs and his glazed eyes. Still, she tried to be cool. She tried not to judge. “That guy you said let you down tonight… He, he’s your dealer, right?” She turned Katya’s hand over, surreptitiously checking her arm for needle marks, but saw none. “What do you need? I know people who might be able to hook you up.”

Katya let out another little bark of laughter, shocking in its unexpectedness. “Are you asking me whether I’m a _drug addict_?”

“It’s nothing to lay a guilt trip on yourself about,” Evangeline told her, gently. “Lots of people use. Like, I smoke grass all the time. I drop acid sometimes. Most of my friends do. It’s not a big deal nowadays. I mean, booze is the worst drug there is, and nobody’s ashamed of using that.”

“Oh yes,” said Katya, with an expression of dark amusement. “Yes, that’s right; I _use_. I’ve used you,_ lastochka_. I’ve lied to you, concealed my intentions. If you have any sense at all, you should leave this place, _now_, and never come back.”

“No,” said Evangeline, “I’m not going to just leave you, not when you need help.” She let go of Katya’s hand to touch her lightly on the cheek instead. She felt her tense for a moment, stark terror written on her face, but then she relaxed, even leaned into the touch a little. Her face felt as though she had just come in from outdoors on a winter’s day.

Katya gazed into Evangeline’s eyes, fearfully, wonderingly. “No, _lastochka_. No, we shouldn’t.” Even as the words left her lips, she was already inclining her head towards Evangeline’s. Their mouths moved closer, and ever closer.

“It’s cool,” said Evangeline. “It’s all cool. Don’t be scared.”

The kiss was as gentle and frosty as the breath from an opened refrigerator. Katya’s mouth felt like dry ice; as cold as the rest of her, slippery but not wet. Evangeline’s lips and tongue tingled where they touched it. It tasted bitter and metallic, like old coins. It tasted delicious.

The couch creaked softly as they leaned closer, until their bodies were almost touching, but then Evangeline felt Katya’s hand on her chest, gently but firmly pushing her away, as easily as an adult pushing a child. Evangeline let out a gasp of protest as their mouths came apart, but Katya kept pushing until they were at opposite ends of the couch, then recoiled once more. She pulled her knees back in, gripping them with her hands, balling up her whole body. An armadillo in a black bathrobe.

“No,” she said, in small, shaken voice, unable even to look at Evangeline. “We can’t do that. It’s wrong.” 

“It didn’t feel wrong to me.”

“We can’t.” For a moment, Katya sounded almost like a frightened child. “It’s against nature. You’re a girl…and I’m a monster. I’ll hurt you.”

Evangeline pictured the icon hanging in the foyer again, the grim-faced Madonna and her sad-eyed child. All of a sudden, Katya keeping it there made a lot more sense to her.

_“My grandmother doted on that thing…”_

“You’re not a monster, Katya. I understand you feeling that way, though. I’ve felt that way myself. I know what it’s like to be ashamed of what you are.”

“You don’t know what I am.”

“I think I do,” Evangeline insisted. “I know enough, anyway. I had a religious grandmother too, Katya. She raised me, more or less, after my mom and dad…” She shied away from the end of that sentence, from the memory behind it. “She passed away not long after I first came to New York.”

“I’m sorry,” said Katya, but Evangeline did not know whether she meant about her grandma or something else.

“My grandma loved me,” she continued, “and I loved her, but… She was old-fashioned, you know?” She laughed, because it hurt a little less than crying. “The place I come from, it’s a little logging town in southern Illinois. The only things there worth a damn are the lumber mill and the local military base. If they saw someone like you walking down Main Street, Katya… No offence, but they’d call out the pastor, the sheriff and the National Guard, in that order. I bet your hometown back in Russia wasn’t much different.”

“Probably not,” Katya agreed, without making eye contact or relaxing her posture for an instant. “As I told you, it was a long time ago. I’m not sure I really remember.”

Evangeline sighed. She remembered too well. “I was in the tenth grade when I realised I…liked girls just as much as I liked boys. I’d heard enough Sunday sermons by then to know how God would feel about that. So, I prayed to Him, prayed and prayed to be different…to be _normal_…but in the end I realised…” She shook her head as if that would stop her eyes from welling up. “I looked around at all those folks in church, at all their small-mindedness and bigotry, and I realised if being normal meant being like them…I didn’t fucking _want_ to be normal. And any God who’d say I should didn’t deserve my prayers.”

“God may or may not exist,” said Katya, stonily, “but damnation is real.”

“It’s cool, Katya,” Evangeline half-whispered, edging closer to her again. “It’s really groovy, in fact, being who you want to be, and doing what you want to do…loving who you want to love. You’re not a monster. Don’t think about yourself that way.”

“Oh, _lastochka_, _lastochka moya_…” Katya’s voice was filled with despair. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand. You’re a…_child_. There are things in this world, terrible things, that you have never encountered, and hopefully never will.”

“What happened to you?” Evangeline asked, although she was afraid of the answer she might receive. “Who hurt you, Katya?”

“When I came to America,” Katya recounted desolately, “I thought it was the land of the free. That was what my father told me and I believed him. Oh, Yuri Stepanovich Ivanov…you wonderful, optimistic _idiot_… I believed the same things you believe, Evangeline. That I could be whoever I wanted, do whatever I wanted, that there would be no rules, nobody telling me what to do. Just as you did when you left your small town in Illinois and came to the big city, with all of its bright lights and empty promises and sex and drugs and rock and roll…”

“And it came true,” said Evangeline. “I _am_ free now. We can be free together.”

“No, Evangeline.” Katya bowed her head. “No, I can never be free. You’ll find out when you’re a little older. Wherever you go, however you choose to live, there are always rules. There is always somebody giving orders. There is always a price. Freedom…freedom is like luck; there’s no such thing. I’m begging you, _lastochka_; leave me. Go home. Forget you were ever here.”

“No, Katya…”

“Let me tell another fairy tale.” Katya’s trembling was getting worse. She clutched herself even more tightly, as if fighting the impulse to spring from the couch and take off around the room again. “You’ll know how this one goes. A pretty girl, alone in the woods. And she meets an exotic stranger; an older woman, perhaps. Intriguing, maybe even…captivating. So…she puts on her red hood and goes skipping off to the old woman’s house, eager to play. But when she gets there, she doesn’t find an old woman waiting for her at all. No, she finds…”

She laughed again, or maybe she was crying this time. Either way, it was a disturbing, desperate sound that made Evangeline’s blood run cold.

“There is a beast in me, _lastochka_,” said Katya when she could talk again. “It never sleeps, and it is always…_hungry_. I can feel it now, growling in my breast, rattling my ribs like the bars of a cage. It is telling me it can smell your youth, your strength, your_ life_. It is telling me it wants to take them for its own. It is telling me it wants to _eat…you…all…up_.”

“I…” Evangeline stared at her, horrified. Whatever was wrong with Katya, she was starting to realise drugs were only part of it. Her heart was pounding, and not with excitement. It took all of her courage and self-control not to simply jump up and flee. “You shouldn’t be scared of your feelings, Katya. I feel the same way about you.”

“No.” Katya sadly shook her head. “No, my little petal. You don’t. Walk out through that door, right now. Go home as fast as you can, and don’t look back. Do it now.”

“I’m not going to just leave you all by yourself. Let me at least call…”

“_Do it_!” Katya’s voice was like a peal of thunder, half shout, half snarl. She raised her head to fix Evangeline with a wild glare.

_My, what big eyes you have…_

“Every moment you stay here, the more dangerous it is for you. I am not exaggerating. I _will _hurt you, Evangeline. Now…_go home_!”

Perhaps it was the way Katya’s deep, dark blue eyes seemed to blaze in the lamplight; perhaps it was the sheer force of pain and despair in her tone, but in the next instant Evangeline found herself on her feet. Frantically, almost deliriously, she turned tail and ran from the library, stopping only to snatch her coat from the stand as she passed through the foyer. She wrenched open the apartment door and slammed it deafeningly behind her, pounding down the stairs in a dead run. She saw Joan’s startled face flash past as she barged through the main entrance and nearly fell headlong down the steps to the sidewalk.

She was back on Amsterdam Avenue, stumbling and breathing hard with the cathedral looming ahead, before she managed to stop running and think about what had just happened. It was only then that she realised how strange it all was. Why had she fled like that, when a second earlier she had been determined to stay with Katya to the bitter end? Even as frightening as Katya’s behaviour had been, even as determined as she had been to push her away…

She almost turned around and went back, but then she realised Katya had probably locked the door, maybe even told Joan not to let her back up. She had made it more than clear that she did not want to see Evangeline right now…or maybe ever again.

She tried to push that thought away, because it scared her worse than anything Katya had said or done. There did not seem to be much for it, though, not tonight anyway. She pulled on her coat, raising the scarlet hood over her head, and sadly started to walk back to her dorm.

It was late now. The night had grown colder. The avenue was practically deserted, almost silent apart from the occasional cab rumbling along and the ever-present echo of sirens in the distance. Evangeline’s bootheels rang like hammers on the paving slabs.

She barely noticed, just as she barely noticed the city blocks passing by. She was too caught up in the whirlwind of unpleasant thoughts and painful emotions currently raging inside her head. Was this really the end of her friendship with Katya? She did not know. Her heart froze in her chest at the sheer…unfairness of it all, at the thought of never seeing her again when she had only wanted to…

No. She shouldn’t have kissed Katya like that, not even if in the moment she had seemed to want it too. It had been too much, too soon. It was all her own fault. She had ruined everything.

_You’re so stupid_, she told herself. _Just a stupid smalltown hick. Imagine thinking you had a chance with somebody like Katya! You’re not fit to…_

And then she realised how self-centred she was being. The one who needed help was Katya, all alone in that apartment, in that terrible state. Should she call an ambulance? The police? No; if the pigs found out Katya was an addict, they’d probably… Maybe Joan would know if there was anyone…?

A sound cut across her inner monologue, derailing her rushing train of thought; a rustling, skittering sound that had ended by the time she fully registered it. She stopped for a second, listening and hearing nothing. Probably a rat. There were millions of them in the city, and at night they came out to play.

She realised she was back beneath the cathedral’s overbearing façade. She resumed walking, past the grand steps, trying not to look at that strange, spiky purple graffiti she had noticed when she passed earlier. Despite her best efforts, she glimpsed the ugly symbol lurking in the corner of her eye, and once again it struck her as…wrong, somehow.

As she passed it, she heard the sound again, directly behind her and closer than it had been. This time she knew exactly what it was. A footstep. No, footsteps; quick and quiet, gaining on her.

She did not stop this time. She increased her pace, not daring to look back, especially not when she heard whoever was walking after her speed up too.

_“Got jumped walking down Riverside Drive…”_

She told herself not to be so nervous. She had walked home at night a thousand times before and nothing had ever happened to her. It was just somebody else walking home too. They didn’t care about her. There was no need to be…

“Hey, little girly…” It was a man’s voice, deep and gruff. Almost a growl.

She ignored it, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. She could see the lights of the crosswalk twinkling ahead. Not far. Not far…

“What you doing out this time of night, little girly?” The growly voice was much closer now. “Can’t tell _who_ you might run into.”

She realised she was not going to make it to the crosswalk before he overtook her. She turned, shaking, her pulse thrumming in her ears as she reached into her coat pocket, clutching her room key between her fingers. Maybe she could gouge his eyes with it, or…?

Her follower emerged into the orange pool of the nearest streetlamp. He was stocky, she saw; broad across but not particularly tall. He was dressed like any of a hundred homeless men she had passed on the street, in a threadbare green Army jacket, stained work pants, decrepit boots. Shaggy brown hair spilled from the edges of his knitted beanie. She could see the spray can stuffed into one of his jacket’s side pockets.

“B-Barney…?” she wondered. Maybe he’d seen her walking alone from wherever he was dossing tonight, and this was just his drink-addled way of looking out for her? But then she saw the man’s face. Not Barney.

Barney did not have a coating of even thicker, more wiry hair covering his chin and cheeks and the backs of his hands. Barney’s hands were not huge and elongated like that, their thick, sharp nails hooked like claws.

_“…the guy messed her up real bad…”_

Barney’s eyes did not burn red.

The man just kept coming as she stood, frozen, in the streetlight. He walked casually, loping easily along. The parts of his face and hands that were not covered in hair were parchment-pale, bloodless. And he was smiling.

“Look, look,” she stammered, almost choking on her fear. This could not be happening. Not really. Not to her. And yet it was. She let go of the key, opening her coat to pull out her purse, holding it out to him like an offering. “Look, I’ve got like ten bucks in there. Take it, it’s yours. Just don’t…”

“Don’t want your _money_, little girly.” The man’s smile split into a wide, leering grin.

That was when she saw his fangs.

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not originally going to end on a cliffhanger, but it grew far too long and I had to cut if off somewhere. I think it’s going to take another couple of parts to get to what I originally envisaged as the end point of Chapter Two. My fics go that way, sometimes. The poem quoted is “To You” by Walt Whitman. One of the few things I know about the Latin language is that the magical incantation I made up using Google Translate is very unlikely to be in any way grammatically correct. Some of the details regarding Evangeline’s hometown possibly count as an in-joke; I’m not endorsing any particular L.A.-by-Night-related fan conspiracy theories…but I’m not *not* endorsing them…! Regarding Katya’s Tarot reading, I took the first two cards drawn and their interpretations here from…well, if you know, you know. ;)


	4. I Can’t Twist the Truth, It Knows No Regulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which blood is spilled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence against women. Also, vampires being vampires. And as we now know, L.A. by Night Season 4 will be upon us on 31 Jan 2020 whether we’re ready or not! Get hype, as the kids probably don’t say any more.

As she passes through her workroom, she collects a few essential items; a small gardener’s handbasket; a well-used trowel; a silver ceremonial knife with a forward-curved sickle-like blade and a sigil carved deep into its handle. She places the tools in the basket for easy transport and turns on another lamp as she steps through the far door. It illuminates a small, square chamber almost identical to the one where she sleeps except for a second, outer door in the opposite wall.

As in her bedroom, strategically deployed rugs and hangings hide as much as possible of the breezeblock walls, duct-lined ceiling and poured cement floor. The rest of the space is taken up by a long brocade-covered sofa spilling stuffing from one of its cushions, two matching easy chairs in a slightly better state of repair, more bookshelves, another record player with a few LPs stacked beside it, and a glass-topped coffee table strewn with elderly magazines on a variety of subjects. This is where she would receive visitors, if she ever allowed any into her haven.

She crosses to the low sideboard next to the outer door. There is a row of coat hooks above it, on one of which hangs a white hooded cloak. She leaves that where it is; she does not need to make any first impressions or grand entrances tonight. Instead, she sets down her basket to open the sideboard’s twin drawers. From the first, she takes a large, straight-barrelled key of the sort that might open a manhole or a maintenance hatch. She places this in another of her vest pockets. From the other drawer, she produces three small glass vials filled with viscous red-black liquid. She makes sure to check their painstakingly handwritten labels and to confirm their stoppers and wax seals are intact before secreting them about her person. This is the blood sorcerer’s equivalent of pocketing a loaded .38 before leaving the house. For emergencies.

The outer door opens onto a narrow, bare breezeblock passage sloping gently upwards to the final, outermost portal. This is the front door of her haven, a tall, broad slab of metal much sturdier than the ones separating the various rooms. It is further reinforced by three pairs of thick steel bars spanning its entire width, slotting deep into the walls on either side of the doorway. Each pair of bars is connected by a massive lock positioned on the door’s centreline. She takes out her key and inserts it into the first lock, turning it one full rotation to make the bars slide out of their sockets.

The door and the locks were here when she first moved in. She does not know exactly why the person who let her stay here after her arrival in the city had what was once just another maintenance tunnel converted into such a sanctum. She suspects it was intended as an emergency bolthole, an insurance policy against affairs going seriously awry, although he does not strike her as the sort of person who would readily run away from danger. She does not consider that necessarily to be a sign of wisdom, however. A bolthole, a refuge, is certainly what this place has been for her these past thirty years. She remains grateful to her benefactor for that, whatever she may think of some of his business dealings.

The bars are not the only things securing the entrance, or even the most important. She has made her own contributions; runes and glyphs inscribed down both sides of the doorframe, across the lintel above and the threshold below. A small fetish, a bundle of twigs and bones tied with braided human hair, is nailed to the upper left-hand corner of the doorway. A large, geometrically complex seal is chalked on the floor immediately inside the door. She regularly redraws it as it becomes scuffed and faded over time. Anybody, living or undead, who tried to use this entrance without her explicit permission would severely regret it.

And still, she cannot help but think, none of her preparations might present much of an obstacle if _he_ were the one seeking entry. He is simply too old, too puissant in the _ars magica_.

When she has unfastened all three locks, the front door swings ponderously open on silent hinges and the outside air caresses her face. It feels warmer and dryer than the atmosphere inside her haven, carrying the scent of dust and pollen and a hint of city smog. She steps over the threshold, into the night, and closes and relocks the door behind her. Its deliberately grimy, battered exterior is featureless apart from the three unobtrusive keyholes and a large yellow sign with a jagged black lightning symbol advising the unwary of high voltage danger. It is not a completely inaccurate warning, to be fair.

She walks along the last short stretch of tunnel with the basket hanging from the crook of her arm. She can see a rectangle of clear night sky up ahead. The Beast gives a distant grumble as she rouses her blood, stretching her senses in search of any supernatural dangers that might lie in wait. She is overcautious, perhaps, but with an enemy such as she has made…

Everything around her seems to grow brighter as she peers through this world into the unseen worlds beyond. The colours become deeper and more vibrant, almost like dropping acid but with an added, unwavering _clarity_ instead of the illusion of understanding that LSD imparts. Now, she can almost smell the magickal power that pervades the surrounding area, seeping up through the ground like crude oil, but _colder_, _blacker_. That is the alleged curse of Griffith Park, or at any rate the thing behind all the strange stories about this place. What it actually is, she does not know and her efforts to find out over the years have been almost entirely fruitless. One night, though…

Somewhere ahead, and far above her, she can sense something like a spark or a candleflame, hot and bright and reeking of _life_. A mortal, she realises, wandering the Observatory grounds after hours. She tenses for a moment, but then smiles in spite of herself as she recognises this flame’s particular shape, its particular feel, or whatever the word is for something sensed in none of the usual ways. Its particular _vibe_, she decides. This interloper is nothing to worry about.

She senses an additional presence, further away; a rumbling, panting, stinking animal bounding through the night, huge and powerful, filling her with instinctive fear. That is nothing to worry about either, at least no more than usual. It is just the collective psychic noise from the Lupines who dwell further up the mountain. The Bone Gnawers have no more desire for trouble than she does herself; under normal circumstances they do not venture south of Mount Hollywood Drive. She repays them the courtesy by staying well out of their territory during her own nocturnal ramblings. In any case, ever since the unfortunate incident in 2004, the night the Venture Tower burned, she has had special wards in place. The Observatory will hopefully never again have to replace so many doors and windows at the same time.

She can hear voices too, and not with her ears. They gibber and whisper on the very edge of detection. Those are always present, a thousand different conversations or halves of conversations, none of the speakers seemingly aware of the others talking all around them. Large concentrations of humans living and dying together generate ghosts the same way they produce garbage; continuously, unendingly, drifting and piling one upon another. She cannot see or hear wraiths as clearly, or interact with them as fully, as the members of the Clan of Death, but quite honestly, she does not want to. She has learned that lesson.

_“My name is Benedetto Giovanni. Maybe you’ve heard of me? I’m in the funeral business.” _

She looks down, concentrating on her free hand, on the marble whiteness of it, as white as the lily in the necromancer’s buttonhole… Decisively, she pushes that particular memory away. Before it leads her into worse ones.

She detects no immediate unseen threats, but before she relaxes her preternatural senses she checks, as she always does, on her sole houseguest. He is there, as he usually is, slumped in the mouth of the tunnel with his knees drawn up to his chest. She pauses when she reaches him, hesitating before she speaks.

“Good…evening, Samuel.” Her voice is slower, quieter than it was when she was a living woman. Sometimes, even now, it sounds to her like a stranger talking. “And how are you tonight?”

The man appears to be maybe fifty years old, but more lined and grizzled than most men of that age are in modern nights, with a bushy grey-white beard falling as far as his chest. He wears patched overalls and a torn shirt, a broad-brimmed hat and a tasselled buckskin coat. There is a tarnished pistol holstered at his hip. “Evenin’ Miss,” he calls out, jovially enough. “Why, I’m feeling a mite better if I do say so. Ribs ain’t hurting nearly as much as they was. Figure I’ll rest up another hour or two and be on my way. Thanks again for letting me stop here while I caught my breath.”

“There’s no need to…thank me, Samuel. I have no more…claim to this land than you do.”

“Still, ‘twas mighty Christian of you, Miss.” She cannot be sure if he is even speaking to her knowingly or replaying a conversation with another woman, long ago. “Now, if only I could find that darned mule of mine. Dumb beast just took off when the rockslide happened, and…”

“You’ll find it, Samuel,” she sadly assures him, her senses slowly fading to normal. As they do, the man grows paler, fainter, more transparent, his voice seeming to recede into the distance. After a few seconds, she can see the tunnel wall through him. He is just barely audible. A few seconds more, and she can no longer see or hear him at all.

She knows from some of the things Samuel has said in the past that he has been here much longer than she has. Since 1849, in fact. He never found the mule.

She emerges into the open air, onto a narrow strip of asphalt hacked out of the hillside, surrounded by dry and scrubby bushes. There is a padlocked hut nearby where the park workers store tools and supplies and a flight of rough concrete steps, going up. She hears crickets chirping, a sign that summer is ending and winter will soon be here, not that that means as much in Southern California as it does in other places. She recalls the snow in New York, feather-light and sparkling, and idly wonders whether she will ever see it again.

_Tiny orange sparks, a hundred or a thousand or a million of them falling all around her…_

Where the ground drops away to the south, she can see the radiant expanse that is Los Angeles, a flat grid of light stretching all the way to the skyscrapers clustered like birthday candles Downtown. The southern sky is stained by the city’s brightness, the stars nearly invisible through the flame-coloured blur. Behind her, the Observatory towers against the slightly darker northern sky, a multi-tiered wedding cake of steps and terraces topped by the spot-lit building itself and its great black domes. She can make out a few brilliant points twinkling in the heavens above it. The moon, currently a silver sickle like the knife in her basket, hangs overhead. When she sees it, she mouths a Wiccan prayer she learned from her extracurricular reading more than fifty years ago:

“O, Maiden Moon, come to me. Hearken, hearken to my plea…”

She is not a believer, but surely it cannot hurt. Most of all, she knows just how much such “base superstition and hedge witchery” would annoy _him_ and the other old gatekeepers of Hermetic Tradition in the chantries. They always preferred their magic to be like just them; antiquarian, pedantic, _male_; and for their badly written doggerels to be in Latin. Usually grammatically incorrect Latin too, but that was what you got from most medieval grimoire authors.

Latin does _sound_ more arcane, she supposes.

She climbs the echoing steps and wends her way through abandoned promenades and viewing platforms until she emerges onto the broad asphalt loop, marked out in parking spaces, in front of the Observatory. To her right, mathematically precise footpaths and manicured lawns surround the Astronomers’ Monument, an angular white obelisk stabbing the night sky. A still near-silence hangs over her surroundings, broken only by the crickets and the distant sounds of Los Angeles, its teeming millions and their cars. It is approaching midnight and the long queue of visitors, locals and tourists alike, who gather every night for the free telescope viewings at the Observatory are gone by now. The only intruders she usually has to worry about are the park police making their rounds, but they rarely come up here at this hour. When they do, they are loud enough that she normally has plenty of time to fade into the shadows until they are gone.

She already knows, however, that tonight she is not alone. Even without her supernatural senses fully activated, she can still feel the faint remnant of that candleflame she detected earlier. She is crossing the parking lot towards the James Dean memorial that stands to the west of the obelisk when she hears the faint sound of strumming on the warm breeze. That just confirms it. He is sitting there on the pavement, as he often does, his back to the bronze bust’s tall pedestal. That was where she first unexpectedly encountered him up here, two…or was it _three _years ago? Time flies even more quickly for Kindred than it does for the living. She was only vaguely aware of most of the past few decades passing, let alone individual years.

He smiles when he sees her approach, carefully putting down his battered acoustic guitar and climbing to his feet. Standing, he towers over her. He is a young man, no older than she was at the time of her Embrace, dressed as usual in distressed jeans and a black tour t-shirt, a denim jacket encrusted with badges and patches. His boots are scuffed and dusty from the hike through the closed park to get here. The scent of old weed smoke hangs around him like aftershave, reminding her of other days, of another guitar played long ago by different hands…

“Hey, Eva,” he says, in that soft, diffident way he has, hardly able to look her in the eye. “Good to see you.”

He calls her “Eva,” rhyming with “never…”

“Good evening, Tony,” she tells him, languidly, still feeling the last lingering glow of the diazepam. “It’s always…good to see you too.” She lets her own smile broaden and sees how bashful it makes him, how he fidgets and blushes. That pulls her up short. She remembers playing that game from the other side of the table, and how it ended. She will not allow the same to happen here.

That blush… She doubts most living people would even detect it, but to her it is all too obvious. With her non-augmented senses, she cannot quite feel the heat radiating from him, or hear his heart beating. She cannot quite smell the blood it sends pulsing through his living veins, hot sweet nectar compared to the stale, cold slop she drinks from the bag. Not quite… But she can see the blush and the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest and shoulders as he breathes. She can feel the air from his lungs as he exhales it into the night. All of her kind are experts when it comes to telling the living from the dead.

_Take him, Neonate,_ the Beast sternly suggests.

“I, um…” Tony thrusts a hand into his jacket pocket. “I ran that errand for you like you asked.”

_Take him._

“Thank you, Tony.”

_Take him. Drink him._

“The guy in Chinatown, he seemed, um, really pleased with the, um, thing you made for him.”

_He could not stop you._

“I’m very glad to hear it,” she says, trying not to heed the inner voice. “It took me a lot of…time and concentration. And he confirmed we are now even?”

_You are a predator; he is your prey. It is the natural order of things._

“Yeah. He did. He, um, he gave me this too…” Tony’s hand emerges holding a fat roll of cash secured by a rubber band.

_Take his life!_

“Keep it,” she assures him, with a serenity that is only skin deep.

Tony’s eyes widen. “Are you sure? There must be, like, a few hundred bucks there.”

She gives him another smile as she pushes the Beast deep down inside and holds it down as best she can. “Of course I’m…sure. You’ve earned it.”

He tries to protest: “All I did was…” Then, though, he nods to himself, still looking uncertain as he returns the money to his pocket. “Thanks, Eva. So, um…you doing anything tonight?”

She shows him her basket. “I’m going foraging. There are…certain plants I require for my work.”

“Oh, cool. Do you mind if I, um, hang out?” He picks up the guitar and starts to return it to its zip-up bag. “I could help you look, even.”

She hesitates, thinking as she always does that it is too risky for him to be around her. What if tonight is the night she finally loses control, does something terrible? But then she sees the puppyish look on his face and gives a little nod. She turns and glides back across the parking lot, and can hear him behind her, hurrying to catch up.

She understands a lot of things that confused her when she was young and alive, now that she can see and feel them from a different perspective. She understands the titanic effort it represented for Katya to restrain herself that night in the apartment. She is not even very hungry after feeding tonight, and still the prospect of warm, fresh blood sets the Beast growling. She also understands, though, why Katya had such trouble pushing her away completely. It was not just hunger, or even love or lust, not that she loves or lusts after Tony; it was also the lure of life, of humanity, of warmth and comfort. Being apart and alone, even for those generally at ease with it, can sometimes be like sitting in a darkened room. When the light comes, it is hard not to flock to it, to luxuriate in it, to wish it could always be there. And that is where the temptation lies, and the danger; the Beast is the Beast, and in seeking to touch the light it is so easy to snuff it out forever.

The strangest thing is that Tony, in all the time they have known each other, has never once asked her exactly why she looks as she does or even why she frequents the Observatory at night. It could be out of politeness, she supposes, or maybe just that wide-eyed naivety, probably explained in part by his surrounding cannabis haze, that she finds so appealing about him. He seems perfectly prepared to accept the notion of strange, unnaturally pale witches roaming the Hollywood Hills after dark, as if it is a normal part of life. Sometimes she wonders whether he has heard the stories about Griffith Park and thinks she is one of its many ghosts.

She doubts she will ever ask him about it. Some things are better left undiscussed and, as difficult as it is for one of her clan to admit, sometimes truth and knowledge are not gifts bestowed but rather curses inflicted. Even if the victim does not realise it at the time.

* * *

Evangeline wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She wanted to do anything but stay here, rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak or even scream. Her body would not let her. Her fear held her in place, stronger than chains.

The hairy man extended one enormous paw, burying his claw-tipped fingers in the shoulder of her coat. She felt them spear through the material, pricking her flesh as shockingly as a red-hot poker, making her gasp in pain. As he dragged her tripping and stumbling across the sidewalk, out of the light and into the deep shadows beside the cathedral steps, she caught another glimpse of that purple symbol; the spiked, inverted, ankh spray-painted on the stone wall.

There was no question of resisting. The hairy man was hellishly strong, yanking her along as if she weighed nothing, as if she were a doll. He spun her around effortlessly, throwing her up against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of her. He was still grinning as he held her there, their faces level, her tiptoes barely touching the paving. He was close enough for her to smell his body odour, rank and musky; not a human smell, more like wet dog. And yet, she realised, she could not feel or hear him breathe.

“Saw you leave the witch’s house, little girly.” The words slurred together deep in his throat, forming a continuous, guttural snarl. “Thought I’d walk you home.”

A new sting of fear, not for herself this time, was all it took for her to force more air into her lungs and find her voice. “The w-witch…? You mean K-katya? Katya’s building? Wh-why were you w-watching…?”

The man gave a purring, animal laugh, his eyes flaring like coals. She was sure he could have killed her instantly, before she even knew he was following her, instead of stopping to talk. He was clearly enjoying her terror, though, making it last. “Oh yeah, we know where she sleeps, your _Miss Ivanova_. She’ll get what’s coming, soon enough.” 

_We?_ “Is, is this some sort of a…a g-gang thing?” Evangeline recalled how Katya had been acting earlier; agitated, shivering, alluding to meeting with somebody who might well have been her dealer. “Some sort of drug thing?”

_For how long have drug dealers had claws and fangs and glowing red eyes?_

The man seemed to think what she had said was funny. He laughed, a sound like a revving motorcycle. “A gang thing? Guess you…_could_ say that…”

The cone of the nearby streetlamp suddenly flickered and dimmed, throwing the man’s face into shadow, but then blazed bright once more. His long, sharp canines flashed like knives. Evangeline grabbed his arm, trying to pull his hand off her shoulder, to ease the hot, throbbing pain where his talons pierced her skin, but it was as hard and immovable as a steel beam. She glanced desperately towards the avenue and the streetlight, so close but so far away. As she watched, her heart pounding in her chest, the light darkened and guttered again before returning to normal. Some oddly calm, detached corner of her mind wondered why it was doing that, even as she silently pleaded with the God she did not believe in, hoping against hope that somebody would come by, see her plight, run for help.

Nobody came.

“P-please,” she stammered. “Please don’t hurt Katya. Please…”

“_Pweeease don’t hurt Katya_,” the hairy man echoed, mockingly. “Why, you think she’d care what happened to you? You think you’re hers? One of her herd? Wrong, little girly. If you live in this city, you’re _ours_.”

Evangeline swivelled her eyes back to the street. Her heart soared as a yellow cab trundled past, then froze again as it continued heedlessly on its way and disappeared from view.

_“This girl lived, just about. The others weren’t so lucky.”_

“_Please_,” she said again as the streetlamp dipped into almost total darkness and then reignited, brighter than before. “Whatever you’re going to…”

The man was unmoved by her plea. He did not seem to notice as the light continued to grow in intensity. He was too busy enjoying the moment. His grin did not waver for an instant as he very slowly and very deliberately tightened his grip on her shoulder. Pain exploded through her, enough to make her feel physically sick, her vision blurring and fading around the edges.

He bent his face very close to her neck, his wet-dog smell filling her nostrils. She felt his lips, cold and dry like Katya’s, brushing her skin as he talked. She gagged, bending her head as far away from him as she could. Not far enough. “When I’ve finished draining you, little girly, might just dump what’s left right on the witch’s front stoop.”

She struggled to pull loose from him, but it was pointless, like trying to wrestle a statue. She felt tears wetting her cheeks and cursed herself for it. She did not want to go out of the world crying and begging, but…

She was so scared.

Another police siren wailed, a block or two away. It may as well have been on the moon for all the good it would do her. “_Don’t_,” she sobbed.

“You know, to send a message,” he explained. “To show New York belongs to the Sword of Caine. Not to the warlocks or the bluebloods or…”

The streetlamp exploded.

Instant darkness. Instant relief as the agony in her shoulder slackened. Sudden impact as the paving slabs came up to hit her, winding her a second time.

She lay there for a moment, unseeing and confused, that same detached corner of her mind listening with interest to the man’s surprised growl. He had dropped her, but…? The only thing she could see was the shower of tiny orange sparks, a hundred or a thousand or a million of them falling all around her as lazily as light snow. She did not know whether those came from the broken light or if they were a reaction to the pain, to the shocking emptiness in her lungs…

And then there was light, a blinding blue-white flash that for an instant seemed to fill the universe. And then another, and another. Or maybe those were just the afterimages battering against her eyes. The man gave another growl, followed by a loud yelp of what sounded like pain.

_Good,_ she thought, but then felt ashamed.

She convulsively managed to draw another breath, coughing and retching, just as the scent of ozone hit her. For a second or two, the air smelled the same as it did straight after a thunderstorm, fresh and sharp, making her nose tingle. Then, another sickening stench cut through, sticking to the back of her throat. Her stomach knotted and clenched at the overwhelming smell of burned hair and meat. She heard a loud, wet thud, like somebody pounding beefsteak with a sledgehammer, and then another. The man whimpered like a beaten dog.

She rolled across the paving stones. Her left knee felt as though she had skinned it in her fall. She managed to sit up, struggling to breathe, as the blue flashes finally faded and she was able to see again by the faint glow that still came from the street.

The red-eyed man lay nearby, flat on his back with thin, pale wisps of smoke slowly rising from his skin and clothes. That was where the smell was coming from. The thick hair on his head and face was now a crisp black crust plastered to his scorched and blistered flesh. One of his arms stuck out at an unnatural angle, the elbow bent almost fully backwards. She filled her lungs, emptied them, sucked air again, desperately trying not to throw up.

She could _taste_ him burning…

She could see another figure standing there in the gloom beneath the cathedral wall, its head inclined to look down on the fallen man. Or at least, she could see it now. She was not sure it had been there a moment ago. It took a step forward, silhouetting itself, slim and dark, against the dim light. The man on the ground cowered from it. Even in his terribly injured state, he managed to push himself up onto his good elbow, boots scrabbling against the ground in his haste to escape. The dark figure raised its clenched right fist and made a forceful gesture, hard enough for its long, unkempt hair and flapping coattails to fly around it as if in a strong wind. Evangeline did not think the figure had touched the man, but nonetheless he was slammed back hard against the paving stones. She thought she heard bones snap and pop. He tried to rise a second time, but could not.

And then the dark figure spoke, its tone sharp and commanding: “_Venite ad me sanguinis!_” A woman’s voice? It made another gesture, reaching out to claw at some invisible object floating in the air, then clenching its fist again to draw the object, whatever it was, vigorously towards it.

The man on the ground convulsed as if electrocuted, shaking and twitching as Evangeline looked on in open-mouthed horror. She heard more of his bones break. His growls were reduced to a thin whine, then trailed off into silence as something seemed to pour out of him, out of his spasming hands and heaving chest, his gaping mouth and eyes; a thick red-black mist distinct from the smoke he was already giving off. It coalesced in the air, growing ever more fluid and coherent, glinting darkly as it drew itself into a long, thin stream. The stream twisted and coiled like a serpent, flowing towards the standing figure’s shadowed face. A new smell filled the air; the bitter, metallic stench of spilled blood, more intense than Evangeline had ever smelled it.

The figure called out another command: “_Sanguis tuus erit et meus!_” 

That was enough to tear Evangeline’s attention away from the impossible floating serpent-shape. She continued to stare, horrified, but now she was staring at the dark figure.

She recognised that voice.

“K-katya?” she asked, softly, warily. She coughed again. “Katya…is, is that you?”

The figure raised its head in her direction, as though noticing her there for the first time. The reddish stream stopped its flow, hanging stationary in mid-air for one split second, then dispersed back into mist before disappearing entirely. A heavy shower of dark droplets spattered the ground beneath. The smell of blood only grew stronger.

Evangeline’s eyes were more accustomed to the near-darkness now. She could see the figure’s dazed expression, the incomprehension in its wide, dark blue eyes. She dragged herself painfully to her feet and stumbled towards it. “Katya?” 

She saw recognition flood Katya’s pale face, almost as if she had been in a trance and was only now fully aware of her surroundings. “Evangeline,” she murmured, uncertainly, and then, urgently: “Go!” She pointed behind Evangeline, at the dark footpath that led along the side of the cathedral, cutting through onto Morningside Drive. “Get out of here, Evangeline!”

Evangeline almost obeyed. She took an involuntary step back, but then made herself continue towards the other woman. She tried not to look down at the man on the ground, but she heard the continuing crackling and rustling sounds coming from what must surely now be his dead body. Her shoulder was throbbing again and her knee gave a little stab of pain with every step, but she could hear the desperation in Katya’s voice, and see the flecks of blood that stained her face and hands. She was not about to run out on her a second time.

“K-katya?” She extended her uninjured arm to touch Katya’s hand. Katya pulled away, almost fearfully, but not before Evangeline’s own fingers were smeared with slippery, dark red liquid. She looked down at them, fascinated by the way the blood glistened in the feeble orange light. “Are you… Katya, are you hurt? Are you bleeding?”

Katya slowly shook her head. She was just as dishevelled as she had been in the apartment; she appeared to have simply thrown on her leather coat over the bathrobe she had been wearing, pulled on a pair of boots. She looked healthier now, though, less haggard. She was no longer trembling and, as far as Evangeline could see in the poor light, the dark rings below her eyes were gone. “No, _lastochka_,” she said, unhappily, her eyes fixed on something beyond Evangeline’s shoulder. “It’s not my blood.”

Evangeline turned her head to follow Katya’s gaze, tracing the thick trail of circular red-black splashes along the ground, leading back from Katya towards… She caught sight of one of the hairy man’s still smouldering boots and almost turned away, but steeled herself to look at the rest of him. Even then, her stomach flipped again when she saw what remained.

He was barely recognisable now; a charred, shrunken mummy, continuing to shrivel and decay before her very eyes. His ravaged face and hands were already starting to flake and crumble into powdery ash, exposing the blackened bones beneath. Tiny particles of ash whirled into the air, dancing out of the light to lose themselves in the darkness. One of the flakes brushed her face, making her flinch. It felt as hot as an ember from an open fire. But then the wind swirled it away, leaving only a sickly, greasy, smoky smell behind.

“Please, _lastochka_,” Katya implored her. “Please, go home. You must forget all about this.”

“What?” Evangeline forced herself to look away from the disintegrating corpse, whirling on Katya, propelled by the fear and anger fighting for control of her. “How can I just forget about…about _that_? How can I just…_leave_ you here after…?”

“I could make you,” said Katya, and the way she said it made Evangeline shiver.

A tumbler clicked somewhere in her brain, unlocking a sudden realisation. “The same way you made me leave your apartment?”

Katya looked at the ground, shamefaced. “Yes.”

“Well, if you’re going to do it, do it,” said Evangeline. “I don’t suppose I’d be able to stop you.” Considering the things she had just watched Katya do to the hairy man, that was more than just a supposition.

Katya was silent for a few seconds. Her eyes were closed and a frown of intense concentration furrowed her brow. Then, she seemed to reach a decision. She strode over to the fallen man, stooping to snatch something from the cadaver. It was the beanie the man had been wearing, Evangeline saw, thickly powdered with his ashes. Katya shoved it into one of her coat pockets, then gently but firmly took hold of Evangeline’s bloodied hand. “We need to get off the street,” she said. “Quickly. Sabbat hunt in packs, bonded to one another.” She looked down at the hairy man; he was little more than a mess on the paving by now, a collapsed bundle of clothes and cinders. “His packmates may have felt that.”

And then they were running, hand in hand, back along Amsterdam Avenue. Into the night. Katya took the lead, her coat flying behind her like a set of batwings, pulling Evangeline along in her slipstream. Every single step felt to Evangeline like the moment she was going to go tumbling to the sidewalk. Her knee and shoulder screamed at her. Her lungs burned. And yet, somehow, she stayed on her feet and matched Katya’s pace, her boots barely touching the flagstones.

Like walking on water.

The street was even emptier than it had been half an hour ago, devoid of pedestrians and traffic. Somewhere in the stillness far behind them, Evangeline heard the sound of skittering footsteps, and then a high-pitched screech of rage. A human voice, she thought, but not making a human sound.

“_Okhuyet_!” Katya exclaimed. Evangeline could tell it was a curse word just from the way she said it. She changed direction instantly, yanking Evangeline sideways into a narrow alleyway lined with overflowing dumpsters, wreathed in backlit steam. They stood, listening, their backs pressed to one of the walls. Evangeline heard the screeching voice again, closer than before. It was answered by a more normal-sounding shout, but this one came from the opposite direction, the far end of the alley.

“They’ve cut us off,” Evangeline gasped, more to herself than to Katya.

“Don’t despair, my petal.” Katya was not out of breath. Except when she spoke, Evangeline realised with a start, Katya was not breathing. She was hurriedly patting the pockets of her coat, searching for something. “I may still have… Ah, yes!” She smiled triumphantly as she pulled out a tiny bottle filled with dark liquid. Evangeline watched her pull the cork with her teeth and then throw her head back, downing the bottle’s contents in a single swallow. She discarded it with a tinkle of breaking glass and turned to face Evangeline, extending her arms towards her, hands spread expectantly. “Come. Quickly!”

Evangeline threw herself against the other woman, more in hopelessness than expectation. She felt Katya’s strong arms enfolding her, Katya’s hand cradling the back of her head. 

“Hold tight, Evangeline,” she whispered with her mouth against her ear. “Shut your eyes. And don’t…look…_down_.”

Even as she spoke, something came bounding into the alley after them. Evangeline barely had time to glimpse it, but it seemed to be hunched and misshapen, not unlike the hairy man but moving very low to the ground, almost on all fours. She turned her head towards a sound coming from the opposite direction and saw another man running towards them, moving with unnatural speed. At least he looked human, dressed in a crumpled suit and trench-coat and brandishing something long and glittering in his hand. Evangeline gaped in astonishment.

_A sword…?_

An instant later, she lost sight of both figures. The ground seemed to fall away beneath her feet, just as the bottom fell out of her stomach. She hugged Katya for dear life, even as she felt Katya’s hold on her tighten too, their bodies jammed together. The air was rushing all around her, an icy gale. She kicked her feet and felt…_nothing_. She felt weightless. That was when she made the mistake of disobeying Katya and looking down.

“Holy _shit_,” she heard herself say.

Amsterdam Avenue, Morningside Drive and their connecting streets and alleys were spread out far below her, a map drawn in streetlights and shadows. That big black space to her left must have been the park, and… The cathedral looked like the most detailed architect’s model ever built.

“Holy shit,” she repeated in a choked whisper as she screwed her eyes shut and buried her face and her fingers in Katya’s coat. She could smell blood and leather and the fragrance of Katya’s hair as it blew around them both. “Holy shit. Holy…”

“It’s all right,_ lastochka_,” Katya murmured in her ear. “We’re nearly there. Nearly there.”

It felt like an eternity, but was probably no more than a few minutes, before Evangeline’s boots touched solid ground again. She landed hard and unexpectedly, feeling another jolt of pain from her knee. She was sure she would have lost her balance if Katya had not been holding her. She did not dare open her eyes until Katya let go, gently extricating herself from Evangeline’s arms and retreating a few yards away.

They were standing on an empty rooftop, surrounded by skylights and ventilation units, the dark sky above and the city towering on every side of them.

“Where are we?” Evangeline asked.

“We’re back at my building. We should be safe here until dawn.”

“Am I…am I tripping?” Evangeline wondered aloud. “That’d honestly be the least worrying explanation for what just happened. But I don’t remember taking anything, and I haven’t had anything to eat or drink tonight… And I’ve, I’ve never… Never seen anything _like _that, not on acid, not on shrooms…” She could hear herself jabbering, while Katya just regarded her, silent and unreadable. “You know, people say DMT is like a really heavy trip, really…scary and, you know, really _real_? They say you see elves and space aliens and shit. But I don’t know anyone who’s ever actually…”

Katya finally spoke again, her tone subdued now: “You’re not tripping.”

“Then that was all real?” Evangeline asked her, very carefully. “That…man, the, the blood… I was flying. _We_ were flying!”

“We were flying,” Katya agreed, unhappily. She looked at Evangeline’s shoulder, where the hairy man’s claws had shredded the woollen material of her coat. The red cloth was darkened by blood. Then she glanced down at her bleeding knee too. “You’re hurt.”

Evangeline painfully flexed her arm. “He was so strong. I thought he was going to…”

“Come,” said Katya, lightly. “Let’s go downstairs. You can clean yourself up.”

“Okay.”

Katya fumbled in her coat pockets again until she found a bunch of keys. Most of them were ordinary house keys and the like; one or two were large and old, ornate and stained with verdigris. She used one of the more mundane keys to unlock the access door at the far corner of the roof, standing aside to usher Evangeline onto the narrow flight of stairs behind it. She held back for a few seconds while Evangeline descended, keeping her distance even after they emerged onto the fourth-floor landing. The building seemed completely dark and silent, the other occupants sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of what had just happened not a stone’s throw from their beds.

Evangeline had trouble believing it herself, despite seeing it with her own eyes only a short while ago. Her mind was buzzing as Katya unlocked the apartment door, trying to comprehend what she had just experienced, trying to put it in the context of the world she had thought she knew. She was not sure she could. Now that she was indoors, surrounded by solid, _real_ things, smelling furniture polish and Joan’s old cigarette smoke drifting up the stairs, what had happened near the cathedral seemed more and more like a bad dream with every passing moment.

_But it was real. That man’s fangs were real. The things Katya did to him were real._

She was trembling, she realised, as Katya herded her into the foyer. Shock, she thought, just catching up with her. She could feel herself teetering on the brink, a random word or thought away from breaking down completely.

Katya was still hanging back, retreating towards the telephone stand in the corner, eyeing Evangeline’s injuries but obviously unwilling to come too close to them. “I think there’s some sticking plaster in the bathroom cabinet. I don’t…”

“I’ll look.” Evangeline nodded, trying to understand Katya’s body language, the strange vibes she was giving off.

_Strange vibes? She can fly!_

The bathroom was at the end of a short, dark passage leading off the foyer. It was small and cramped, as was usual for these older apartments. There was a toilet, a washbasin with a medicine cabinet above it, an iron bathtub with curly feet and a stalky old-fashioned shower attachment. Evangeline turned on the light before shutting herself in and taking off her ruined coat. The first time she had come in here, she had been surprised by the contrast with the other parts of the apartment she had seen. The whole room looked as though it had not been cleaned in some time. The black and white checkerboard tiles were cracked and dirty. The shower curtain was speckled with mould. Tonight, she could see a rust-coloured stain dried around the bath’s drain; she did not want to think about what had made that.

She looked at herself in the fly-spotted mirror on the cabinet door. Her face was a blotchy, teary mess, puffed up around the eyes and streaked with mascara. She unbuttoned the collar of her dress; the shoulder of the garment had been torn to bloody rags. She gasped as she pulled the ripped cloth away from her skin. The hairy man’s claws had pressed it into the wound; removing it _hurt_. There were red stripes of blood running almost the full length of her arm. She wet a washcloth in the basin and wiped away as much of it as she could, then tried her best to examine the wound. It did not look as bad as she had expected, as bad as it felt; just a wide-spaced circle of puncture marks, the skin around them swollen and flushed. More blood oozed out of her as she watched, forming a fat, shining droplet over each puncture.

She cleaned the wound as thoroughly as possible before opening the cabinet. She had never looked in here before. It was empty apart from a single toothbrush, a half-used tube of toothpaste and a very old tin of Band-Aids. She had hoped for some iodine or antiseptic, because she sincerely doubted those claws had been clean, but she guessed this would have to do.

She finished cleaning and dressing her shoulder and knee, washed her face and did her best to rearrange her dress. Then she took a minute to try and calm down before heading back along the passage to find Katya. She was about to open the door into the foyer when she heard her voice on the other side, talking to somebody:

“…not the usual shovelheads, a little more dangerous than that.”

Evangeline froze, holding her breath as she stood in the dark, listening. She could just make out a very faint, distorted voice replying to Katya, far too quiet to understand. She must have been talking to somebody over the phone.

“I took something from the carcass,” said Katya. There was a pause while she listened to the person on the other end of the line. “Yes, Magister, a personal object. We can use psychometry to locate their haven, burn the whole pack out.” Evangeline had never heard Katya speak this way before. She sounded so different from her usual engaging, eccentric self, or even the shivering casualty she had been earlier tonight. Her voice sounded sharp, controlled, _cold_. She sounded almost like a different person. “Yes, I want to be involved. These animals have…affronted me. I would like to make them pay for it.” There was a longer pause, and when she spoke again it was with grim satisfaction: “Tomorrow night, then, Magister. _Do svidaniya.”_

Evangeline waited until she heard the little click as Katya returned the phone to its cradle, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing, before she went after her.

When she entered the library, she saw Katya standing by the windows in her robe, peering through a narrow gap in the velvet curtains. On hearing Evangeline, she quickly turned towards her, letting the gap fall closed.

“I don’t think they’ve followed us,” she said. 

“They? That, that…man, he, he said he’d been watching this place.”

Katya crossed over to the table. She had cleaned herself up too, Evangeline saw; the bloodstains on her face and hands were gone. She was holding the beanie she had taken from the hairy man, turning it over and over distractedly in her hands. “I have…protections on all of the building’s entrances, every window. They would not dare try to enter.”

“He said he saw me leave and followed me. He, he said he was going to hurt you too. I think he was part of…”

“It will all be taken care of,” said Katya. She threw the beanie onto the table. “I will make sure of it.”

_“…burn the whole pack out…”_

Evangeline suppressed a shudder. “That man… That _thing_…what was he?” Katya did not answer. She was disdainfully considering the beanie where it lay among the abandoned Tarot cards; brooding on something, perhaps. “Did you call him a…a _Sabbat_?” Evangeline was not completely sure that was what she had heard. “I mean, I’ve read about witches’ sabbats, but…”

Katya glanced over at her. “Even knowing that word would be enough to put your life in danger, had you not already seen and heard far, far more dangerous things tonight. As for what sort of _thing_ he was…” Evangeline saw her chest rise as she took a single breath, just so she could let it out as a sorrowful sigh. “Well, _lastochka_, he was the same sort of _thing_ as me.”

“No,” said Evangeline, very quietly. “No, Katya, he was a, a _monster_. He had…” She shook her head, remembering. “Those eyes…”

“His particular kind merely wear their Beast on the outside from time to time.” Katya smiled a thin, sad smile as she tapped her chest with her hand. “I keep mine hidden here. I tried to tell you before, even if you did not believe me. Do you remember?”

_“You’re a girl…and I’m a monster. I’ll hurt you.”_

“You’re not like he was,” Evangeline insisted, trying to keep her voice even despite the emotions raging inside her. “You’re not.”

“I am, _lastochka_,” Katya said, simply. “I’m just like him. Dead.”

“What…?”

“I died long before you were born, Evangeline, maybe even before your mother was born. I am old and dead, forgotten among the living. And yet I must walk the earth by night, feeding on their blood. The Beast demands it.”

A sudden, absurd image flashed vividly across Evangeline’s mind, from one of those far-out British horror movies she and Thelma used to watch in the fleapit theatre on 84th Street, before Thelma lost patience with the way they depicted women. She saw Christopher Lee hissing at the camera with red contact lenses and fake fangs. She almost laughed, but it died in her throat. “That’s crazy. You’re saying you’re a…a…_vam_–?

“We don’t use that word,” said Katya, “but yes.”

Evangeline really did laugh this time, but it sounded hollow and bitter even to her. “That’s crazy,” she repeated, but with much less certainty this time.

“Crazier than crushing a man telekinetically,” Katya asked, “then pulling the blood out of his veins? Crazier than drinking a magic potion and taking flight through the air? This world is not how you thought it was, _lastochka_.”

Evangeline took a deep breath, feeling her mind skating along the brink again. “I…I can see that.” She looked around at the shelves of books, at the row of antique grimoires near the door. “So, you can do magic? Real magic, I mean, not…?”

“Thaumaturgy. Blood sorcery.” Katya gave that fussy little shrug, and for a second she was the Katya Evangeline knew, enthused by some point of magical minutiae. “It is a branch of the Hermetic tradition, albeit distinct from the quintessential Hermeticism we have been studying, due to the difficulties…” She paused in mid-flow, looking a little embarrassed for an instant. “Again, yes.”

Evangeline pulled a chair away from the table and sank onto it, looking down at her hands, trying to breathe. “I’m sorry, I just… This is a lot to take in, you know?”

“I know.” Katya was silent for a little while, once again looking as if she were trying to decide what to do next.

“And how does nobody know about any of this?” Evangeline demanded. “There are apparently…_vampire gang wars_ going on, on the streets of New York. How is Walter Cronkite not telling people about this every night on the CBS Evening News?”

“Walter…?” Katya frowned momentarily in confusion, before continuing in a soft, detached almost dreamy tone of voice: “It’s quite simple, _lastochka_; the reason nobody knows about it is that some very powerful, very ruthless beings, a lot older and more formidable than I am, work very hard to keep things that way. For our safety. The last time the k– that is, people in general, knew we existed, we ended up almost exterminated. I’m talking about inquisitions, crusades, witch trials. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Evangeline, “but what happened out there on that street just now didn’t look like people trying too hard to keep themselves secret.”

“An indiscretion on my part,” Katya admitted. “I was…not thinking clearly.” Evangeline wondered whether she had told the person on the phone about that part. “As for those others… There are some among us who believe we should accommodate the Beast, become willing monsters, use our abilities freely to prey upon…people like you.”

“The Sword of Caine,” Evangeline recalled. “That’s what he said, like it was the name of some…group he belonged to.”

Katya nodded. “They are fanatics, fools. Unopposed, they would only bring down destruction on us all.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“It makes no difference,” Katya answered. “You’ve seen too much already. I’m sorry. According to the traditions we uphold, I should…take your memories before I let you leave here again. I have methods. Or maybe take your life. Some of us would say that was the safer alternative. Or…”

“Or?”

“None of the options are…good, _lastochka_.” Katya’s voice wavered. “Not for you.” She clasped her hands together, almost in an attitude of prayer. “Oh, what is to become of us, Evangeline?”

Evangeline felt herself start to tear up again, but not out of fear this time. “I’m not going to tell anybody about any of this. My friends wouldn’t believe me anyway. They really would think I was tripping on something.”

“Your friends might think that,” said Katya, “but _they _have ears and eyes everywhere, reporting back… Especially at places like Barnard College. One word, _lastochka_… One careless word could end us both. You are not the only one in danger.”

“I understand.” Evangeline was not sure exactly which “they” Katya meant and honestly was none too eager to find out. “I won’t say anything,” she assured her with all the seriousness and sincerity she could muster. “You can trust me.”

Katya regarded her in silence, intently searching her face before nodding slowly. “I believe I can, my petal. It may be very foolish of me, or I may finally be losing my mind, but I believe I can.”

“I’d never put you in danger, Katya,” Evangeline insisted. “You’ve got to know that.”

“I do,” said Katya, “but I’ve put you in such terrible danger. I’m sorry, Evangeline. I put you in danger the moment I spoke to you in the bookstore. I should have left it at that, but… I’ve been so stupid, so selfish…”

“Hey, don’t start with all that again,” Evangeline told her, gently. “I wanted to see you again too.”

“But you didn’t know what you were involving yourself with.”

Evangeline hesitated, weighing her next words carefully, but then decided she should just say what she was thinking. “I don’t care what you are, Katya, or how old you are…or how _alive_ you are. Or whether you can do magic. I just care about you. I want to…be with you.”

Katya just shook her head once more. “You don’t know me. And then tonight I sent you out there alone, onto those streets…”

“You _saved_ me tonight,” Evangeline interjected. “If you hadn’t come after me…”

“I didn’t save you.” Katya’s tone was suddenly sharp and cold again. “Do you want to know the truth, how I happened to come along at that very moment? Do you want to know what manner of creature I really am?” When Evangeline did not answer, she continued regardless: “I _tried_ to resist. I really did.” The icy mask cracked as helplessness and despair started to leak back into her face and voice. “Just as I’d resisted the whole while you were here this evening, but… I was so _hungry_, Evangeline. You’d only been gone for a matter of minutes before I set off after you. I wanted to catch you before you got home.”

“Katya…”

“Don’t you understand?” Katya asked, wretchedly. “I came after you because I wanted to do exactly the same thing that Gangrel was about to do to you.” Evangeline did not think she should ask what exactly a Gangrel was. “I didn’t send him to his final death to save you. I did it because he had…stolen my prey.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, _lastochka_,” Katya nearly whispered. “That first night you visited me here, do you remember when I had you read the poem by Tennyson?”

“I do.”

“Do you remember how I stood very close to you, that moment that passed between us before I turned away?”

Evangeline remembered that too. Her breathing quickened involuntarily as she remembered the exciting, frightening feeling of it, the fluttering inside. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“I was trying not to sink my teeth into your throat.” Katya was looking at the floor now, her head bowed. “I could_ see_ the vein pulsing in your neck. I could _smell_ you. You smelled wonderful. Delicious. I w-wanted to…” Her voice caught and she raised her head, putting a hand to her face. Evangeline saw a tear course down her pallid cheek, but not a tear of salt water. It was blood red.

Maybe she should have run away. Maybe that would have been the wise thing to do, considering what Katya had just said. Instead, Evangeline found herself climbing to her feet and moving closer, extending a thumb to wipe the tear away. Again, Katya pulled away from her touch, just as sharply as she had before.

Evangeline looked down at the blood on her hand, the way it highlighted the whorls and arches of her thumbprint. Instinctively, she raised it towards her lips, but then Katya’s hand closed around her wrist, gently but very firmly, as fast as a striking snake.

“_No_,” said Katya, releasing her grip just as abruptly. “I don’t think that would be very good for you.”

Evangeline wiped her thumb on her dress instead. It was already torn and stained, after all.

Katya took a step back. “Even if I do trust you, you can’t safely leave this building, not until first light at least, but…it isn’t safe for you to be here either. The Gangrel’s vitae eased my hunger, allowed me to think clearly again, but I lost most of it on the ground when…I became distracted. Now I can hear the Beast again. It still wants me to…hurt you.”

“But you haven’t,” Evangeline pointed out as she took a step forward. “Just like you didn’t earlier tonight, or any of the other nights I’ve visited you.”

“Not _yet_…”

“Just like you haven’t done anything to me to stop me from telling anyone about you. And you’ve had plenty of opportunity.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Katya murmured, the sound barely escaping her moving lips.

“I know you don’t.” Evangeline’s heart was hammering somewhere in the back of her throat as she reached out to touch Katya’s face again. “But why not, if what I’ve seen is so dangerous to you? If the…the Beast is saying you should?” 

Katya lapsed into another drawn-out silence, letting Evangeline stroke her cheek, looking anywhere but into her eyes before finally answering in a very small, quiet voice: “You know why.”

“Yeah.” Evangeline nodded and smiled, even as she felt the wetness on her own cheeks again, her stomach churning and her breathing quickening to match her heartbeat. “I do.”

The kiss was just as light and chilly as the one they had shared earlier. Evangeline could feel the way Katya’s whole body tensed as their mouths came together. She felt her lean back until they almost pulled apart again, but then relax, letting her lips open slightly under the gentle pressure until their tongues touched. Once again, Evangeline wondered at how different kissing Katya felt; not just how cold her mouth was, but how it could be soft and slick and dry all at the same time. She tasted corroded coins again, but this time she knew she was really tasting old blood, years’ and years’ worth of it. It did not deter her.

Katya waited for the kiss to come to its natural end before she moved back again. She placed her hand over Evangeline’s where it rested on her face and delicately removed it.

“We shouldn’t,” she said, but without conviction. She showed none of the anguish or urgency with which she had driven Evangeline from the apartment earlier. “We shouldn’t.” She was gazing intently at Evangeline’s shoulder, at her torn dress and the Band-Aids crisscrossing the exposed skin beneath. “I don’t want to…”

“You don’t have to hurt me,” Evangeline replied. “That’s the main thing I’ve learned from my friends in the commune. Things don’t have to be how they are, how they’ve always been.” Slowly, tentatively, she unfastened the collar of her dress again. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, she knew her courage would fail her. “We can do things differently now, with peace and love and…” She let the torn cloth fall off her shoulder, as far as her elbow, baring herself. She reached across to seize the edge of one of the plasters. She tried not to flinch as she ripped it away.

“Don’t, _lastochka_,” Katya weakly admonished her. Her eyes were haunted pools of shadow.

Evangeline pulled off another plaster. That one stung too, but again she did her best not to show it. She dropped it on the floor and extended her hand to Katya, beckoning her.

“I can smell it,” Katya observed, to nobody in particular.

“Then come and take what you need,” Evangeline suggested. “I want you to have it.”

“I didn’t…” Katya’s voice broke again. “I didn’t want things to be this way between us. I wanted…”

“It’s okay,” Evangeline said. “Come here. Don’t be scared.”

Hesitantly at first, but then more eagerly, Katya came towards her. She opened her mouth.

_My, what big teeth you have…_

Evangeline’s heart jumped as she saw Katya’s fangs unsheathe from her gums, smaller and more delicate than the hairy man’s but no less sharp. They glinted in the lamplight, ivory needle-points. She was not sure whether she was excited or terrified. In that moment, as Katya took her in her arms, she was not sure there was even a difference between the two.

They fell onto the couch together, heavily enough to make it creak. Katya lay on top, kissing Evangeline again and again on the lips, on her bare shoulder. She was murmuring to herself between kisses:

“_Lastochka moya, lastochka moya…_”

Evangeline could feel Katya’s hands on her body, Katya’s cold tongue exploring the punctures in her skin, making her gasp. She held Katya as close as she could, even when the kisses moved to her neck and the fangs pierced her and a blinding spike of white-hot pain snatched her breath away. She could smell the apartment’s burned-incense fug, and Katya’s hair, and her own blood.

The pain faded almost instantly from hot to warm, spreading the length of her limbs and spine, trickling deliriously through her veins to pool and kindle low down in her belly, her insides quivering. It still hurt, but somehow it felt good. It felt better than good. None of the previous experiences she had had with drugs or lovers even came close. She wrapped her arms and legs around Katya, clutching her to her. It felt almost like looking down upon herself from somewhere outside her body, looking down at the two of them writhing entangled. She could not feel herself, only Katya; the hands, the fangs that connected their souls like electrical points. Her mind was surfing the pulsing golden wave of sensation, losing itself, her consciousness expanding and fading at the same time…

When she came back to awareness, she was lying on her side, facing the back of the couch. Katya lay behind her, spooning her, one hand resting on Evangeline’s belly as she continued to tease at the bitemark on her neck with tender, even strokes of her tongue. The last glimmers of ecstatic pain faded, leaving only its shuddering afterglow, the ghost of pleasure.

“K-katya…?”

Katya answered in a lazy mumble: “I’m here, _lastochka_.”

Evangeline recognised that tone, not from Katya but from living people she knew. When she managed awkwardly to half-turn her body, making Katya raise her head, she was unsurprised to see the other woman wearing the expression that normally went with it. Katya looked down at her with glazed and vacant eyes, mouth curled into an aimless smile.

Evangeline smiled back. “Did…did you have a good trip too?”

“The best, my petal.” Katya licked her shining lips with obvious satisfaction. “To think I was afraid.” She gave Evangeline another gentle kiss and pulled her closer.

They nestled there on the old upholstery, bodies curled together, cold skin touching warm.

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that dude Tony who made one appearance as an NPC back in Season 2 and apparently runs errands for Eva? I do! :D I think he’s almost certainly going to be a major player in Season 4. Almost certainly… Speaking of Season 4, we now have mere days to wait! At my current glacial pace, I’d think it’s extremely unlikely I’ll get even another chapter of this fic finished before then, let alone the whole thing. It certainly seems very likely that some things will be revealed in the coming episodes that directly contradict things I have already written here, as well as some of the things I already have planned. This has already happened to an extent; back in December Josephine McAdam revealed some interesting details about Eva’s backstory as part of a charity stream for the International Myeloma Foundation (a worthy cause for anybody looking for one). As I predicted, this fic turns out to be pretty divergent indeed on various points re Eva’s pre-vampire life. I don’t think there’s any point in substantially revising or retconning anything I’ve already written, because I’d basically be starting a completely new fic, but I’ll try to incorporate the new information to keep things as canon-compliant as possible in future chapters. In this chapter, I tried to have Katya display some of the powers attributed to Eva in the show, on the basis that they could well have learned them from the same teacher (and we all know who that would be, neonate), but I’ll admit I do tend to err on the side of the rule of cool rather than trying to stick to the letter of the tabletop game mechanics. You know, the really puissant elder Tremere probably have their unique personal sorcerous techniques. Or something. Oh yeah, and those are totally Bloodlines Sabbat, but I think Katya’s take on the Sword of Caine and their beliefs is very much coloured by Camarilla propaganda.


	5. Wouldn't You Love Somebody to Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it is the idyll before the storm…or is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for vampirism, hints of Tremere Shit and also some hints of unhealthy and dysfunctional relationships.

“You're one microscopic cog,” Tony sings shakily as he strums his guitar, “in his catastrophic plan; de-_signed_ and _directed_ by his _Rrred. Rrright. Hand_…”

As she continues to delve in the deeply shadowed undergrowth between the trees, her gardening basket hanging from her arm, she muses that she knows exactly the sort of thing the song is talking about.

She has foraging she needs to do before the night is over, to find ingredients for the charms and elixirs her clients have requested. She probes around the bases of the dry, gnarled trunks, listening to the sound of the guitar on the night air, searching…

They are perhaps a quarter mile northwest of the Observatory. She has made sure they stay well to the south of the road, relatively safe from some of the other things that might be abroad in the park at night, as well as from being sighted by patrolling security guards. It was a pleasant enough ramble to get here, over hills furred with sage scrub and chaparral, through crackling stands of black walnut and sycamore. She knows nearly every tree, by appearance if not by name. They are nodding acquaintances; she is not sure she would call any of them friends. When she said this to Tony, he thought she was joking. The stars and moon shine down now they are more sheltered from the city lights. She is still surprised sometimes by how much natural illumination they can provide with their soft, cool glow. The woods around her rustle and sigh with nocturnal life.

A couple of hundred yards further on through the trees, invisible from here, there is a derelict wooden building, formerly a park ranger station, now barely more than a decaying shack. There is a little patch of ground next to it that she cleared with her own hands, many years ago, not long after she first arrived here. She read books on gardening, taught herself how to prepare and fertilise the poor, arid soil and how to keep the flowers she planted alive. She considers magic to be work; her occasional gardening is the closest thing she has to a hobby. She has had particular success with roses, blooming white and red. She feeds them on dried blood and ground bone.

Some nights, she likes to sit among her flowers, and get high, and talk to them as she looks at the stars, charting their steady courses across the sky. The ranger shack has a musty earth-lined basement, reached through an exterior cellar door. She fitted a padlock on the inside, on the same night long ago that she performed the rituals to sanctify and ward the underground space. Every once in a while, when she feels especially in need of solitude, she spends the day there, in the dark, zipped up inside an old sleeping bag. A haven from her haven; one only she knows about.

She would never take Tony to her secret flower garden, as much as she has come to trust his discretion. It is her private place, in a way that goes beyond considerations of personal safety or security. In its small, simple way, it is the world of her own she always wanted when she was a living girl.

She glances over at him now, where he is seated on the fallen walnut log in the middle of the little clearing. He seems enraptured by his own guitar playing, closing out the song with a series of rapid, vigorous chords. His pick-hand is a blur. The loose ends of the instrument’s strings bob and tremble around its head like cat’s whiskers.

“I liked that one,” she tells him when he has finished.

Hearing her approval makes Tony mumble and blush again. “Thanks, Eva. I, um, heard it on that, um, show about the British gangster dudes in, like, the 20s or the 50s or whatever.”

“I don’t get to see much television.” She marvels a little at the idea of enough time having passed for someone of Tony’s age to get those two very different decades confused. She remembers the 1950s vividly; she spent most of them in elementary school. She remembers the gingham dresses and pigtails she used to wear, rock ‘n’ roll on the radio, and the old, square world she started rebelling against as soon as she was old enough; men in hats, women in gloves, cars with tailfins; church on Sundays, Milton Berle and Perry Mason on TV, white picket fences…

“You should watch it if you get the chance,” Tony wholeheartedly advises. “It’s on Netflix.” She has heard this word before, but is not entirely sure what it means. “I have to put closed captions on to understand what they’re saying half the time but it’s fucking rad. I wanna get one of those cloth caps; reckon it’d look pretty cool.”

She considers the mental image of Tony in a cloth cap that flashes before her eyes. “Yes. Yes…I think you would.”

She sees how that seems to make Tony grow an inch or two in height as he sits there. She feels another pang of guilt. She is just trying to be kind to him, she tells herself, not to… But it is the nature of the Beast that even when she cannot hear it, she still cannot fully trust her own motives. She is a predator; a deceiver, a seducer, a _liar_. It is in her blood.

He turns his attention to retuning the guitar, which he apparently needs to do after every single song. This is an intensive, fussy process involving a lot of key-twisting and string-plucking and grimacing. Occasionally, he breaks off to play a snatch of some tune or other. She does not recognise any of them.

She considers herself a music lover, but she is sometimes uncomfortably aware of how dated her tastes are, of how her years of insulation from the everyday world of the living have left huge gaps in her knowledge. Occasionally, when she has no other pressing business and gardening seems like too much effort, she will wander onto the hillside to the east of the Observatory to see if there is any light and sound coming from the direction of the Greek Theatre, no more than a few hundred yards away. There are vantage points from which she can peer down, hidden beyond the glow of the floodlights, and watch and listen to the concerts that take place there. Most of the time, she drifts away after an hour or so, disappointed not to hear anything she knows.

She suspects many of the performers are famous, judging by the crowds that attend despite some of the acts seeming to be years past their prime. The idea that they could have risen to fame and fortune, had entire careers and started to fade into obscurity again, all during the time she has spent escaping and running and dwelling in near-solitude, is a disturbing one to her. What else has happened to the world while she has been looking away? Young Evangeline, always so passionately concerned with the _now_, would have been appalled.

It is a thought that occurs to her even more strongly on the rare occasions that she hears a tune she never knew existed before but which speaks to her, makes her want to stay and listen. It is at times like those that she thinks perhaps a little more engagement with the world outside her haven might not be a bad thing, that even after all this time it is not too late to…

That is the temptation. It does not come often. Most of the time she is…content, or at least accepting, of the existence she has chosen, almost completely apart even from her own kind. Whenever she is tempted like that, she reminds herself exactly why she made that choice. She reminds herself of the person she was, and the person she was forced to be. She reminds herself of the things done to her…and the things she did.

_Come back, Neonate. Cast aside your fear and resentment. Your House and Clan forgive you. The Pyramid will always welcome back its missing bricks. It_ wants _you back…_

She is not sure whether that is the Beast talking, or something else. The mark _he_ left on her. Whatever the truth of it, she knows any attempt to hide from one of his dark power is doomed to failure, if not tonight then some night soon. She has far better, and worse, reasons for keeping mostly to herself.

“You find what you’re looking for?” Tony calls from his seat on the log.

“Not yet.” She releases the woody shrub she has been holding to one side so she can look beneath it. Its scalloped leaves tremble as it springs back into place. “_Baccharis pilularis_,” she informs Tony, pointing at it. “Coyote brush.”

“Whoah,” he responds, plainly impressed.

“Heat the leaves…and they can be used as a poultice for swelling and bruises.” Some blood sorcery rituals and potions require plant ingredients, often used in seemingly nonsensical ways. It is magic, after all. Standard herbalism, however, was not included in the Tremere curriculum. Mundane remedies and medicines are scarcely of much use to beings such as herself. She has read extensively about it, however. She has the time. Book learning, she tells herself, is just as valid and authentic as that handed down by word of mouth. The Chantry would agree with her on that, although they tended to be rather selective as to exactly which books. And she does not get many opportunities to share her learning with others.

“And what’s that one?” Tony points at a large bush with long, sticky leaves and pale fuzzy flowers.

She looks at it for a moment. “_Baccharis salicifolia_; called mule fat, or seepwillow. That’s…_very_ common around here. It can be used as an ingredient in a lotion to treat chills.”

“And that one?” He is indicating the low-lying green plants covering the ground in the middle of the clearing.

“_Stellaria media_,” she replies. “Chickweed. It can be used to relieve skin diseases, pulmonary conditions, rheumatism, arthritis, period pain…”

Tony laughs. “Hey, _I_ know a weed that’s good for arthritis.”

She cannot help but laugh too. “Yes, I’m…familiar with that one as well.”

“Hey, you want to hear another song?”

“I’d love to, Tony.”

“Okay.” He eagerly strikes an isolated chord on the guitar, and seems satisfied by the sound he gets from it. “Here’s a new one I learned. Well, I say a new one… I know you like the golden oldies; I found it on Spotify and it made me think of you.” He starts strumming again and then begins to sing; if not well, then at the very least with gusto. “If you’re go-innng to…_San_. _Fran_. _Cisco_… Be sure to _weaaar_ some flow-ers in your _ha-iiirrr_…”

That is one she knows, even if she has no idea what Spotify might be. She was not yet twenty years old when it was released, still a small-town girl in so many ways. That was the first whole summer she spent in New York, listening to far-out music like that, reading about the Monterey Festival and the Summer of Love. She dreamed day and night of travelling to the West Coast and being a part of something bigger than herself, of living a new kind of life nobody had ever lived before, leaving all the old rules and hang-ups behind…

“All across the nation,” Tony is singing, “such a strange vibratio-_onn_…”

She couldn’t possibly drop out of college, though; she couldn’t let down all the people who had believed in her and helped her get where she was. Grandma would have turned in her grave. Sometimes she cursed herself for a coward for not taking that plunge, but then she met her friends in the commune and it was as if her dream had come true, right there in New York City.

For a time, anyway.

And she did eventually come to California, twenty years too late, although she never made it to San Francisco. From what little she has heard over the years of Kindred affairs in that city, it is just as well.

“There's a whole _generation_, with a new explanatio-_onn_…”

Stop dwelling on the past, she scolds herself as Tony continues to play. There is work to do tonight. She returns to her search, moving a couple of trees to the left and poking through another thick stand of foliage, intently examining the plants she finds, the shapes and colours of leaves and stems and flowers. It is a relatively simple task, but she puts as much effort and concentration into it as she can.

Perhaps concentrating will be enough to silence the persistent, cajoling whisperings at the back of her mind. Perhaps that will make the memories give up and go away.

* * *

“_Don’t want your _money, _little girly_.” _The man’s smile splits into a wide, leering grin_.

_That is when she sees his fangs._

For an instant, she did not know where she was. She did not know who she was. She lay in bed, trembling, her heart pounding as she listened to her own harsh, rapid breathing and clutched at the sweat-dampened sheets.

Even in absolute darkness, she could see the streetlight reflecting from the hairy man’s yellowed sabre-teeth. She could smell his wet-dog stink, just as she had that night, and hear the last growling echoes of his voice. It all seemed so vivid, so _real_.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said another, softer, voice somewhere close by. “Did I wake you?”

The sights and smells and sounds dispersed like mist, leaving only blackness. Only a dream, Evangeline realised as she turned over and groped for the lamp on the nightstand. Only a dream. A second later, and she was already starting to forget it, telling herself how absurd it was to be so scared of something that had happened weeks ago, of somebody who could do her no harm now.

But when she stretched out her arm to reach the lamp’s switch, the twinge in her shoulder reminded her of his claws, of how they had felt when they drove into her flesh like red hot nails…

“No,” she said, doing her best to shove the memory aside. “You didn’t wake me. I was… I was just dreaming.”

“Oh, another nightmare?” Katya clucked sympathetically in the dark. “My poor petal.”

The lamp came on with a _snap_. The bedroom filled with soft golden light, apart from the deep shadows persisting in its corners and around the edges of the floor and ceiling. It was actually one of the smaller rooms in the sprawling apartment, and seemed even smaller for being crammed with old furniture and associated bric-a-brac. Evangeline was not sure it had originally been a bedroom at all. Its single window, facing the rear of the building, had been bricked up and painted over long ago, in what she was sure was probably a violation of New York City’s building codes, but Katya had explained that she could not risk even a stray glimmer of sunlight while she was sleeping.

Or however you might describe what she was doing while she lay there during the daytime, stiff and cold and dead.

Evangeline could see her now, sitting at her dressing table, hard up against the edge of the large, oak-framed bed. She was wearing the long-sleeved, full-skirted black dress she had put on to go out earlier tonight. “To work,” she had said, as casually as Evangeline might have talked about another shift in Artie’s bookstore, although her outfit and the makeup and jewellery that had gone with it had perhaps been better suited to some elegant formal occasion. She wore her hair piled high on her head, skewered in place by two long, lethal-looking pins.

Evangeline sat up in bed, _their_ bed, she suddenly thought with a sort of idle wonder, letting the covers fall away from her. She was not wearing anything, but it was a warm July night and she and Katya were by now long past the point of modesty around one another. She glanced at the clock next to the lamp and the new Kurt Vonnegut novel she had been reading before turning in for the night. It was not quite three thirty in the morning.

“You’re home early,” she said.

“The sun will start rising in about another hour,” Katya replied, without turning away from the mirror. “You know how careful I have to be about that.”

“Yeah.” Evangeline watched as Katya started taking off her numerous rings and necklaces. She had mostly chosen Victorian mourning pieces tonight; silver and jet. As she removed each item, Katya carefully stowed it in its assigned place in her multi-drawered jewellery box, a methodical and lengthy procedure. She had already taken off the heavy makeup she usually wore when she ventured out into the night; her dark, dark lipstick and the deep, smoky shadows she had spent so long brushing around her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She looked so different without it, more ordinary maybe; more human, in some way. Sometimes she looked so young, and other times like somebody who had borne all the world could throw at her for years and years. Evangeline could see the ghosts of long-dead freckles still dotting her nose and cheeks.

“Hey, do you know what day it is?” she asked her, trying not to sound too eager.

Katya frowned. “Tue…no, it’s Wednesday now.”

“No, I mean it’s…” Evangeline laughed nervously, a little embarrassed to realise how much she had been hoping for a different answer, although how would Katya know anyway? Maybe she overestimated her ability to find things out. “You know, they’re going to send those three astronauts to the moon today. Fire them off into space from Florida on top of this huge rocket…”

Katya seemed unimpressed by this news. “Typical technocracy,” she muttered, “using brute force to impose their paradigm on the rest of the world…”

“Did you have a good time while you were out?” Evangeline had a mental image of Katya twirling around a huge, glittering ballroom with some guy in white tie and tails. In her mind’s eye, the guy had a black cape, too, with a red silk lining; a widow’s peak, and sharp white teeth.

“Not really,” said Katya. She seemed on the quiet side, but she often was. It was sometimes hard to tell what kind of mood she was really in. 

“Oh.” Evangeline felt the barest hint of that inner chill she sometimes got when she was talking to Katya, which she had now come to realise was a sort of fear. Not fear _of _Katya, although maybe she should be scared of her now that she knew what she was. She had never really felt that way around her, though, and when she thought now of all the times, right from the very beginning, when Katya had had the opportunity to harm her but had not… Instead she feared _for _her. She just seemed so unhappy sometimes, so scared herself.

She had been a little tense when she went out before, as she often was when she had to go to “work.” Some nights when she came home again, she was withdrawn, even irritable. Some nights she looked sad, other times quietly angry; not at Evangeline, but at whatever had happened while she was out. Evangeline still did not know exactly what it was she did, only that it related to research, very probably of an occult nature. Katya very obviously knew a lot about ritual magic, however; practical experience, not just what she’d read in books. They had tried a few simple Hermetic workings together, here in the apartment, and Evangeline had even turned Katya on to some Wiccan spells she had not known before. Katya had said Evangeline showed real promise as a practitioner. She did not know whether or not that was just her being kind.

Some nights, Katya brought work home with her, although she was always careful to lock it away in her antique rolltop desk. Evangeline had stolen odd glimpses, though, of old brittle papers, complex magickal diagrams, writings in dead languages. She did not know how they might relate to the kind of being Katya was, or the ways she might interact with others of her kind. She still knew very little about Katya’s world in general, beyond the things she had said that first night after they had flown – _flown!_ – from that alley to the roof here, and the odd pieces of gossip she occasionally dropped about the people she referred to as her “colleagues.”

Some nights, looking at Katya’s empty face, holding her as she lay curled up, unmoving, on their bed, Evangeline was glad she did not know more.

And some nights…

One time, a couple of weeks ago, Katya had come home with her left middle finger cleanly severed at the knuckle, the remaining stump undressed but bloodless. Evangeline, horrified, had rushed for the first aid kit she had insisted on buying for the apartment’s bathroom, but Katya had waved her away as if it were no great problem. Certainly, she had not seemed to be in any pain. One night later, the stump had started to sprout a new white bone with a new wrapping of flesh and skin slowly, hideously, creeping along its length. Two nights later, the finger had finished growing back, exactly the same as before.

It was at times like that that Evangeline wondered whether she was being very stupid, whether she really should just leave this place for good and go back to her dorm room and her friends on campus and in the commune and never think about Katya again. But just imagining doing that made the fear come back. There were other times, when Katya read poetry to her, or they worked through her books of magic together, or just sat and watched Katya’s newly-acquired television set; times when Katya held her close and murmured gentle words to her and kissed her, and…

She felt the chill again, worse than before. How could she just close the door on all that?

“Were you over at Barnard tonight?” Evangeline asked, as brightly as she could. She knew Katya “worked” at various different places around Manhattan in addition to the college, but had no idea exactly where they might be.

“No, not tonight.”

“Did you do anything interesting?”

“No, nothing interesting, _lastochka_.” For a moment, Evangeline thought she was going to leave it at that, but then Katya threw a glance at her over her shoulder, and dropped her voice as she continued, as if she thought someone might overhear them: “Well, there _was_ one small drama…” In an instant, her serious mask had cracked completely into the smile Evangeline suddenly realised Katya had been trying to keep hidden from the very beginning of their conversation. Tonight, it seemed, was one of those rare nights when she returned from “work” in a playful mood.

“Go _on_…” Evangeline urged, leaning forward in encouragement, the chill thawing into relief.

“I shouldn’t tell you,” Katya began, which of course meant she was about to, “but you remember I told you about my…superior?”

“The bald man?” On those occasions when she gossiped, Katya was always careful not to share any names.

“No, _his_ superior. My noble Lord.”

“Oh, _him_.” Evangeline tried to recall exactly which one was which.

“Yes.” Katya half-turned on her stool to face her. “Well…_my noble Lord_ was in the library at the ch…that is, where we work, two nights ago and he came across a copy of _Witchcraft Today_ by Gerald Gardner in one of the bookcases.”

“Is that bad?” Evangeline queried. She had read it of course; it was one of the foundational texts of modern Wicca, even if she had thought its arguments were a bit hard to follow in parts and all that stuff about the faeries and the Knights Templar had seemed a bit far out even to her. Katya’s tone of scandalised delight, however, suggested that her superior’s discovery was a major development indeed.

“For a thaumaturgical purist like him it was,” she confirmed, practically grinning by now. “He is a _very _firm believer in the importance of Hermetic tradition. He thinks Éliphas Lévi was some sort of dangerous modernist. A book written less than about four hundred years ago on one of _his_ bookshelves…? The very idea!”

“So, what did he do?”

“Well, _tonight_, he summoned all of us to his private chambers and confronted us with this…forbidden tome.” Evangeline could tell from Katya’s expression that she was greatly enjoying telling the sorry tale. “And vowed… That was the word he used; he _vowed_ that he would conduct a most _assiduous _investigation and that the person responsible for introducing such _refuse_, his word again, into _his_ library would soon come to find themselves regretting their actions most profoundly. That’s how he talks.”

A thought immediately occurred to Evangeline. “It wasn’t you, was it?”

Katya gave her sly look. “No. I wish I’d thought of it, though.” She turned back to the mirror, still talking animatedly: “And then, later on, one of my colleagues told me she’d happened to overhear my noble Lord instructing Mag…that is, the _bald man_, who could easily have his Lordship’s position if he wanted it, by the way; he is actually the elder of the two, and the more powerful.”

“Who, the bald man?” Evangeline was getting confused now.

Katya, however, was in full flow: “My noble Lord, of course, is far too busy and important to conduct his own assiduous investigation, so he was instructing the bald man and telling _him_ he suspected it was all the work of…well, my other friend. The one who’s now my noble Lord’s superior, much to his chagrin.”

Evangeline pretended she remembered being told about the other friend. “Oh, right.”

“Yes, apparently my noble Lord thinks the planting of this _corrosive text_ is part of a plot by…my other friend to undermine his position so she can replace him with a _woman_ or a _free-thinker_ or some other terrible thing like that.”

Evangeline grimaced. “Urgh. He sounds like a real pig.”

“He’s very set in his ways. It’s something…well, people like me, are very prone to, for reasons you may imagine. I try my best not to be, but…well, remember the first time you showed me _Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In_?”

Evangeline chuckled as she remembered the first evening they had spent with the television. “You hated it.”

““Hated” is a strong word…”

“But now you love it.”

“And it’s so silly.” For a second, Evangeline thought Katya was talking about the TV show. She regarded her reflection for a moment as she slowly coiled up one of the silver chains she had unfastened from around her neck. “Somebody like that…somebody so old and powerful, respected and…yes, feared, by so many of us… Somebody like that wasting so much time and concern on…on…”

“On bullshit?” Evangeline suggested.

Katya swivelled around again, obviously tickled by that. “Yes…on _bullshit_. I like that.” She went back to her jewellery-stowing. “Yes, _bullshit_. One thing about people like me and the way we order our affairs…there is an awful lot of _bullshit _involved.”

“There’s bullshit wherever you go,” Evangeline pointed out. “The government. In college. Why should v…uh, people like you be any different?”

“I wish I had left that book in the library,” Katya reiterated, dropping her voice even lower and speaking very slowly, perhaps working her own thoughts out as she voiced them, or maybe reluctant to say what was on her mind. “I hope some of my colleagues got a chance to read it. Even if they didn’t agree with what it had to say, maybe it would make some of them think, reconsider a few of the things they’ve been taught.”

“I hope so,” Evangeline told her. “You know, just because things have been one way for a long time, it doesn’t mean they have to stay that way.”

“Exactly!” Katya rounded on her again, excitedly this time. “We…people like me…we think we can stand apart from the world, that it can’t touch us, that we can stay as we are. But that has never been true. It’s even less true today, with the way things are changing so quickly all the time. And in the future…” She shook her head in frustration as she turned back to the mirror. “And it doesn’t matter how powerful we think we are compared to the, well…people like you. A trickle of water will carve through a great boulder in the end, as surely as a saw cutting wood, and there is nothing the boulder can do about it. My kind, we can’t avoid change. We need to change too, if we want to survive.”

“Everyone does,” said Evangeline.

“I try to tell my colleagues,” Katya insisted, with bitter amusement. “_Some _of us try to tell our superiors, but the bald man, my noble Lord… Even _thinking_ those sorts of thoughts around them can be dangerous.”

“Revolutions are always dangerous,” Evangeline argued.

Katya gave a snort of mirth. “You sound like some sort of Brujah now.”

“What’s a Brujah?”

“Forget that word,” said Katya, her voice instantly serious. “I didn’t say it.”

Evangeline played along. The last thing she wanted was to upset the other woman. “What word?”

“Precisely.” Katya smiled again, just a tiny bit sardonically. “And take it from me; revolutions don’t always turn out as well as you might imagine. My other friend, though…she listens. But she’s young for one who’s risen so high in…our organisation. Not even a hundred yet. I’m very proud of her.” Evangeline could hear how fondly she said that. “But sometimes I fear for her. This is a dangerous city for our kind; you’ve seen some of that at first hand.”

“Yeah,” said Evangeline, uncomfortably, trying not to think about the dream again.

“And honestly, I wish the Sabbat were the only ones she had to worry about…”

Just hearing Katya say that word again brought the memories of that night flooding back, the night she had met the hairy man; the night she and Katya had first…

_The fangs pierce her and a blinding spike of white-hot pain snatches her breath away…_

Even now, just thinking of _that_ moment made her pulse and breathing quicken, made her veins and nerves quiver as they remembered the fire that had crackled along them…

“How did your friend rise so high?” she asked Katya, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “If she’s so young and, well, open-minded?”

“Politics,” Katya answered, simply, as she fussed with the last couple of pieces of jewellery. “A move made as part of a game played across centuries by beings grown so old and strange that…” She shook her head again, staring not at the mirror but through it for a moment. “You can’t imagine what they’re like, Evangeline. You can’t. I remember when they took me to see them in…” She stopped herself short. “I hope you’ll never be able to imagine them.”

_“New York belongs to the Sword of Caine. Not to the warlocks or the bluebloods or…”_

“I was dreaming about that guy,” Evangeline said, making Katya turn her head again. “You know, when I woke up just now. The guy at the cathedral. The guy you…” She fell silent under Katya’s unblinking blue gaze, watching as she turned away again without comment. She was suddenly sure that even mentioning that night again had been a bad idea. Katya did not say anything immediately, but her smile had snuffed out as instantly as a candleflame. She just reached up to extract her two long hairpins, one and then the other like a magician pulling swords from a cabinet to let their assistant spring forth unscathed. Her hair cascaded loose in its normal unkempt tangle, hiding her snow-white neck and shoulders.

Katya took the time to put the pins away too before she finally spoke. “Don’t worry about him,_ lastochka_.” she murmured reassuringly, her voice softening again as she addressed Evangeline’s reflection in the mirror. “He’s gone.”

Something about the gentle way Katya said it made the hairs on Evangeline’s neck prickle a little. “Yeah, I know.”

Katya ran a hand through her hair, picking up a handful and then letting it go, critically considering the way it fell before brushing the stray locks out of her eyes. “He and the rest of his pack, they can’t hurt you now.”

“Yeah,” said Evangeline.

She had awoken the morning after that night, right here in this bed, her body entangled with Katya’s. She had tried to get up carefully, she remembered, extricating herself with difficulty from the other woman’s arms without waking her. That had been before she had realised that during the hours of daylight nothing could make Katya stir.

She had used Katya’s phone to call Artie and her instructor at Barnard. She had told them she was sick, which had not been a total lie. There was no food in the apartment’s grimy kitchen, she had discovered without really being surprised, but then again, she had not felt hungry at all that day. She had spent the rest of it in Katya’s library, staring at old books without really reading them, staring out of the window at the blue-grey sky and trying not to remember the dreams of the night before.

Katya had appeared not long after dusk, already washed and dressed and wearing her leather outdoor coat, and had stooped to kiss Evangeline on the lips before hurrying out of the apartment with the beanie she had taken from the hairy man’s corpse clutched in her hand. She had sternly told Evangeline to stay where she was, and not to open the front door no matter who she thought might be on the other side. Not even if she believed it was Katya herself.

When she thought back now, Evangeline had the idea that Katya had not been sure that night whether she was going to return.

So, she had waited and worried, and fallen asleep in the end on the same couch where she and Katya had…

_She cannot feel herself, only Katya; the hands, the fangs that connect their souls…_

Another shudder, a sick, itching sensation as if her bones were sweating, her flesh crawling with desire, want, _need_; not a conscious memory, but the echo of a feeling, an aching, desperate longing to feel it again…

She had woken up long after midnight from a fresh set of nightmares to find Katya sitting hunched by her feet, still wearing her creaking coat, weeping bright red tears.

She had thrown her arms around her, of course, pressing her lips to her ear and murmuring words of comfort as Katya sat shaking and sobbing for an hour or more, gazing wordlessly down at the blood dripping onto her blistered, soot-stained hands. Her hair and clothes had stunk of smoke and ozone.

_“…burn the whole pack out…”_

In all the time they had spent together since, they had never once spoken about that second night.

Now, Katya rose from the stool, turning her back on the dressing table and contorting her arms behind her to reach the fastenings of her dress.

“You could have asked me to do that,” Evangeline observed as she watched her struggle. She yawned, rubbing her gritty eyes, suddenly remembering now that it was not yet four in the morning and she had not had nearly enough sleep.

“I’ve grown too used to getting undressed alone,” Katya answered, and her smile returned as she managed to get the dress unfastened and started to slide it off. She wore an old-fashioned slip underneath, and stockings instead of tights; all black too, of course. “It’s been a long time since I last shared a bed with anybody. Or a motheaten blanket, for that matter, or an old coat on the floor of a boxcar, or…”

“How long?” Evangeline asked, with the honest curiosity she felt whenever Katya chose to share any details of her past.

Katya took her time returning the dress to its waiting hanger, clearly considering the question. “Well, it was just after Mr Roosevelt got elected President…”

“Which one? Franklin or Teddy?”

“Teddy?” Katya rolled her eyes in mock astonishment, her good mood evidently unpunctured by the difficult moment just now. “I’m not _that_ old, Evangeline.”

Evangeline had to laugh at that. Katya laughed too, and she was glad to hear it. Sometimes she missed those early evenings they had spent together just as friends, before that night when so much had happened and even the meaning of all that had gone before had seemed to change. Katya had not laughed much in the past few weeks.

Katya put her foot on the stool to unstrap the heavy-bladed dagger she carried sheathed against her calf. Its hilt was silver, clearly old, and deeply engraved with blackened runes in an alphabet Evangeline did not recognise. It had shocked her almost as much as the severed finger the first time she had seen it, and realised Katya must wear it whenever she left the apartment, perhaps explaining her strong preference for high boots and long skirts. It was another thing they had never spoken about.

“No, it was Franklin Roosevelt who’d just been elected. FDR, people used to call him. I was still…” Katya hesitated and for a second Evangeline could see her moment of discomfort before she continued. “Still like you.” She had been going to say “still alive,” Evangeline realised with a twinge of sadness. “But that was…a difficult time in my life. You’re probably too young to know anything about the Depression.”

Evangeline shook her head. “No, my grandma told me all about it. She said it was rough.”

“Hard times. When I was…changed, I thought I’d been rescued from all that, that I was free. I really did.” She laughed again, but the sound of it made Evangeline’s heart sink. “How young and silly I was in those days.”

“And it happened here, in the city?” Evangeline asked. “Your…change, I mean.”

“Oh yes. I’ve been here a long time.” Katya briefly affected an accent almost exactly like that of Joan the “conci_oige_:” “I’m a _Noo Yawker_ through and through.” She set the dagger aside on the nightstand, next to the lamp and the clock and _Slaughterhouse-Five_, within her easy reach once she was in bed.

Evangeline blinked her heavy eyelids and laid her head back on the pillow, listening to the faint rustling sound of Katya taking off her remaining garments, “Do you think of yourself as a New Yorker?” she wondered sleepily. “You seem proud of being Russian too.”

“I can be both,” Katya replied in her normal voice. “I may have been born in Russia, but New York was where I became who I am. When we first got here, my family used to live in a rowhouse up in Hamilton Heights.”

“In West Harlem?” Evangeline murmured with her eyes almost closed. That was only a couple of miles from where they were now.

“Yes. That was where most of the Russians in New York lived in those days. A lot of us arrived here as refugees from the Revolution and the civil war that came after it, which probably makes me a little cynical whenever I hear people talking about revolutions now. It’s not that I’m against them in principle, I just think people who talk about them need to think hard about exactly what they’re wishing for.”

“I don’t disagree about that.”

Katya felt silent for a second, thinking, and when she spoke again, she sounded wistful, the way she had when she had talked about the icon hanging in her foyer. “It was just me, my parents, my grandmother… Those first years in America were good years. We had jobs, a little money, food on the table, and we had each other. I’m glad we had that time together…before everything started to go wrong.”

“I’m sorry it did,” said Evangeline, and meant it.

“So am I,” Katya replied, “but…it was a long time ago now. Nothing to be done about it. It’s been…” She was silent again for a moment, out of sight now Evangeline was lying down, somewhere beyond the edge of the bedclothes. “Well, about fifty years ago now.”

“I didn’t know,” said Evangeline. “I thought…you know, with your books and furniture and everything, and…just the way you are…”

Katya just gave another unexpected laugh, a lot more cheerful-sounding this time. “I’m not sure how I should take that.”

“No, I mean… When I found out…the kind of person you are, I thought you must be, like, two hundred years old or something, but really, you’re, like, the same age as my grandma.”

“Yes, old enough to be your grandmother. I just like old things, _lastochka_. And…I like being able to have things, because I remember what it’s like to go without. But mainly, when I’m here, in this place…” Katya hesitated again, before shyly adding: “With you… It’s my refuge. My fantasy. I can be how _I_ want to be. Not the way I was before, or the way I have to be when I’m…at work.”

“I get that.” Evangeline realised it was the same way she had come to think of the apartment herself, in those early days before she’d ever heard of the Sabbat or the bald man or any of that.

She really had closed her eyes by the time she felt the covers being pulled back. She opened them again to see Katya climbing into bed. As always when she saw Katya naked, Evangeline tried her very best not to stare. She did not want to make her feel self-conscious. Her body gleamed white in the lamplight. Dead white. When she did not cover it with clothing or makeup, there was an almost translucent quality to her skin, dark blue veins faintly visible just beneath it, and the areas of her body that might have been flushed had she been alive were livid, almost bruised in appearance. The mattress pinged gently as she settled herself beside Evangeline.

They lay facing one another with the covers pulled over them. Whatever the weather outside, Katya never seemed to feel the warmth or cold of her surroundings. “You know, I like it when you talk about yourself,” Evangeline told her, quietly. “About your life.” If that was the right word for it.

“I know you do.” Katya smiled sadly at her from the adjoining pillow. “I need to be careful about that. The way you listen so earnestly to everything I say…it makes me indiscreet sometimes.”

“You don’t need to be careful,” Evangeline insisted. “I told you, you can trust me.”

“It’s not that,” Katya said, very serious again for a moment. “I need to be careful to keep you safe. There are things about me and the people I associate with that you really don’t need or want to know. Believe me.”

“Sure,” said Evangeline, feeling that hint of fear again; not for herself when she was with Katya, never for herself.

“When I’m with you, though, I find myself…” Katya bit her lip, thinking. “I…_like_ telling you things, too. Showing off, I suppose; you should see your face sometimes, when you’re not sure whether or not to believe me.”

“I believe you,” Evangeline replied, “but… Well, you have to admit, some of the things…”

Katya gave another laugh; at herself, Evangeline thought. “It’s been so long since I had somebody I could just talk to, as a friend. A real friend, I mean. With my own kind…it’s always hard to tell. And sometimes…you just need to say what’s on your mind.”

“It can make you feel better,” Evangeline agreed. “Saying things out loud.”

“Yes. There are things I’ve been keeping to myself for _years,_ because I had nobody who would listen to them…or who I trusted enough to tell them.”

Evangeline returned the smile, and really meant it. All of a sudden, her heart felt as if it was going to burst. “Well, I’m glad you feel like you can tell them to me.”

“So am I.” Katya gingerly reached across the small gap between them, using the very tips of her fingers to smooth a few loose hairs away from Evangeline’s forehead. It was a hot, airless summer night; Evangeline’s skin was warm, slightly damp with perspiration. Even just the tips of Katya’s fingers felt like cold glass beads against her brow, her temple, her ear… Evangeline tried not to flinch, but was not sure she had managed it.

“You’re very precious to me, _lastochka_,” Katya told her, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Before I met you, I felt… I felt as though there was no light at the end of the tunnel in which I found myself. No hope. Nothing to look forward to. And now… It’s only been a few months, but…I can’t imagine being apart from you. Just the idea of it…”

“Neither can I,” Evangeline replied, because it was the simple truth.

“I’ve told you before, though,” Katya went on. “Nothing is forever. I’ve learned that lesson too many times over the years. Let’s just…enjoy our time together while it lasts.”

Evangeline almost replied to that, almost voiced the half-formed thought that swam through her mind in response to Katya’s words, but she was not sure how Katya would react. She was not even sure exactly what the thought was, or whether she wanted to admit to it even in the confines of her own head.

Instead, she leaned across and kissed Katya on the mouth, smelling her perfume and shampoo and the last lingering traces of her makeup, but tasting blood.

She withdrew again, letting Katya take the initiative, letting her kiss her in return. Katya edged closer as she did so; Evangeline tried not to jump when she felt her cold hand on her arm, her back. She put her own hand on the back of Katya’s neck, gently pulling her into the next kiss, rolling slightly so that Katya’s weight settled half across her. She knew by now that if she held her close enough, she would soon feel warmer.

For now, though, Katya’s lips still felt like ice. Evangeline shivered as she kissed her on the neck, in that same spot she always picked whenever she… The shiver became a shudder, trembling downwards from the place where the kiss landed, travelling the full length of her spine. That itch; that bone-deep, sickening, wonderful itch; had returned. Evangeline lay with her eyes closed, clutching Katya to her and breathing hard, anticipating the next kiss, the delicious pain of Katya’s fangs, and then that golden fire that felt like nothing else in the world, throbbing and cascading through every inch of her, obliterating her, outshining all other thought and feeling…

But the pain and the fire did not come. For a second, the disappointment, the thwarted yearning, was almost too much to bear.

Evangeline opened her eyes to see Katya looking down at her almost nervously, as if she did not know what to do next. Eventually, she leaned in and kissed her on the lips again, soft and slow. As she raised herself up again, she lightly stroked the backs of her fingers across Evangeline’s cheek. 

“It’s okay,” Evangeline said. “You know, if you want to, um…_feed_… It’s okay.” She licked her lips, heart fluttering; hoping, longing…

“No, it’s all right,” said Katya, crushingly. “I, um, I had something while I was out.”

_Had _someone_, you mean_, Evangeline thought, but she said: “Oh.” And she chided herself for the thought, because she liked to think jealousy and possessiveness were things she had unlearned since she started hanging out at the commune. She wasn’t like that, she told herself.

Katya frowned at her, obviously seeing the disappointment on her face and wondering what to make of it. “You know I can’t feed from you every night, _lastochka_. I don’t want you to get sick, do I?”

Evangeline sighed. “No. I guess not.”

Katya slowly ran the back of her hand across Evangeline’s cheek again, with that same nervous look. “I was just thinking… If you wanted to… We could try the other thing again. You know…?”

Evangeline did. “Yeah, okay. That’s cool.”

“Not if you don’t…”

“It’s cool,” Evangeline repeated. To show it, she pulled Katya’s head down again, kissing her more fiercely than before, pushing her lips apart with her own. Katya responded just as eagerly, pressing herself against Evangeline, letting her hand slip down onto her waist, her hip, her thigh. Evangeline could feel the goose-bumps standing up on her shrinking skin, her heart pounding as she gasped for breath, just like standing under a cold shower.

They tried, their bodies mashing and tangling together, just as they had the other times. And just like the other times, they broke apart again after a few minutes’ desperate, determined fumbling. Katya flopped back onto her side of the bed, her head against the pillow. Evangeline propped herself up on one elbow, looking across at her in concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked after a short, embarrassed silence had passed between them.

“Yes,” Katya transparently lied.

“How did it feel? I didn’t…hurt you, or…?”

“No.” Katya shook her head. “No, _lastochka_. It felt…nice.” Evangeline supposed that was what they called damning with faint praise. “Your hands felt very warm, but… How was it for you?”

“It was good.” That, again, was not a lie. It had been enjoyable enough, once the chill had gone out of Katya’s skin, even if it had been cut short before reaching a conclusion. Her own pleasure, though, was not the problem. The problem was everything else.

“I nearly had it then,” Katya murmured. “I thought I could feel it starting to happen, but…” There was a deep redness around her eyes which Evangeline had come to recognise as the prelude to tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.” Katya had explained there was something people like her could do, to make their bodies generate heat, their hearts beat, their lungs pump, just for a little while; so that they could look and feel like a living person for a time…even make love like a living person. Katya, however, seemed to find it difficult.

Unlike Katya, Evangeline was quietly panting, starting to sweat a little from her efforts. She reached over to take Katya’s hand. It felt much warmer now, just from where it had been touching her, almost as warm as her own. Temperature was not the issue. The problem was how _wrong_ it felt when they tried to make love like two living people, how _different_ Katya’s body felt under her hands and mouth, how it did not react the way a living body would have reacted to the things she was doing, or even react at all.

Katya did not even sweat. She did not get out of breath. She would have had to be breathing for that to happen.

“I tried so hard this time,” Katya whispered despairingly. “I can remember what it feels like. I can almost… I used to be able to do it whenever I wanted, even just to talk to people without them suspecting anything, but… It’s been such a long time, Evangeline, since I last… I’ve spent so much time with my work, my…colleagues, trying not to get involved in outside things. I haven’t needed to. It’s been too long.”

“We’ll keep trying,” Evangeline said, squeezing her hand. “If you want to.”

“I do,” said Katya, sorrowfully. “So much.”

“You’ll get it soon enough.” Again, Evangeline realised only now how much she had wanted a different answer. “I know you will.”

“I really did nearly have it just then,” Katya told her, almost pleadingly, as if saying it enough times would make it true.

“Maybe next time.”

Katya looked at her for a moment. It took Evangeline that long to work out she was watching her chest rise and fall as she breathed. “I could… If you’d like me to, I could still…” She gave an awkward little laugh, making an airy but eloquent gesture with her free hand. “I could still…help you out, you know?”

It took Evangeline another second to realise what she was talking about. And then, just the thought of it… “No,” she said, softly. “It’s okay. I’m tired. I’m going to try and get another couple hours’ sleep before I have to go to work.”

“All right,” Katya replied, with what might have been relief. “Yes, you should sleep. I’m going to drop off soon too.” As euphemisms for dying went, it was at least nicely understated. “I can feel the dawn coming.”

Evangeline leaned over again to peck her on the cheek, finding herself hoping for Katya’s sake that it was going to feel unexpectedly warmer or softer or more alive than usual…but it did not. She spent a moment searching Katya’s face for some hint of a flush or blush that simply was not there. She gave her hand another squeeze before releasing it. “Good night, then. Or good morning, I guess.”

Katya managed a weak smile. “Good morning, my petal.”

Evangeline rolled over to face the bricked-up window, slamming her head into the pillow and closing her eyes as she heard the mattress pinging and shifting again behind her. A moment later, Katya turned out the light with another _snap_, and the room returned to darkness.

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you’re thinking; “God, this fic needs some editing!” And also, possibly, “if Katya’s humanity is low enough that she has trouble using Blush of Life, how the hell didn’t she rip Evangeline’s throat out in the previous chapter or the one before that?” As wise Tremere elders tell their apprentices, that’s a really good question, Neonate. Well, it’s been too long since I updated this more-canon-divergent-than-ever saga, and in the meantime…Season 4, huh? That was quite something. Quite something indeed, perhaps especially for us Eva and/or Katya watchers. I think this chapter would have turned out very differently if I’d finished writing it before watching the new episodes. Shayne Eastin also dropped a couple of hints about Katya’s pre-Eva backstory in a Reddit AMA she did very recently, which inspired part of the conversation here between Katya and Evangeline. Again, I’ve split what was originally going to be one chapter into two for length; I hope to have the next part up in the not-quite-so-distant future. Season 4 additionally revealed more pesky details that directly contradict some of the stuff I had planned for future chapters. On the other hand, it suggested a compelling, albeit absolutely horrific, scenario for Eva’s post-Embrace time with Katya that I wouldn’t mind incorporating in this fic. I’m still trying to decide exactly whether or how to do that. Also in this chapter, multitalented Renaissance man Tony quotes lyrics from the songs “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1994), and “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” written by John Phillips, and sung by Scott McKenzie (1967). Eva talking to trees and flowers was not my own idea; if the people who suggested it read this, I hope you won’t mind. :)


	6. I Hope You Got Your Things Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evangeline has a hell of a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to addiction issues, hints of non-consensual intimacy, illegal drug use, more allusions to unhealthy and/or abusive relationships, and mention of Nazism and Nazi crimes, of all things. Also vampirism.

Tony stops playing and sets aside his guitar to put a hand in his jacket pocket. He pulls out a battered old tobacco tin and opens it to produce a loosely-rolled homemade cigarette with a twisted end. He takes out a cheap plastic lighter too and gestures with it expressively. “Um, mind if I…?”

“No, of course not,” she tells him with a smile. “But be very careful; we don’t…want any more fires.”

He nods, very earnestly. “I’ll be careful.”

As she continues her search beneath the trees, the warm, familiar smell of burning weed wafts through the clearing; one of the smells of her youth. Just smelling the smoke, or even deliberately drawing it into her lungs, can have no narcotic effect on her, but the scent alone is enough to set a cauldron of memories bubbling, threatening to boil over at any moment.

She thinks of a creaking mattress, a gentle arm around her, golden sunlight streaming through a cracked and dirty window...

_"…there’s this big festival we heard about that we were thinking of checking out. …”_

There it is. Just as the recollection starts to pour over the brim, she finds what she is looking for. In the nick of time. It is a tall green-purple stem with small fernlike leaves and clusters of white flowers. She sets her basket on the ground and picks up her knife.

She raises the knife in her hand, emptying her mind as she holds it up as an offering to the crescent moon. She lets the pale light slide along the silver blade as she mutters a dedication to the Triple Goddess. Then, she kisses the cold metal before stooping to cut one of the branches from the plant with a single, decisive stroke. The cutting goes into the basket, and then she takes another, and another. That is sufficient. The plant should survive; she makes a mental note of its location for the next time she needs this particular ingredient.

As she walks back across the clearing to Tony, she sees him peering curiously at the basket. She shows him the cut stems with their feathered leaves and little shocks of flowers. “_Conium maculatum_. Hemlock. It isn’t native to California, or even North America, but…it grows here all the same. They used this to make the poison that killed Socrates.”

“Cool,” he says, as if he knows who Socrates was. Maybe that is unkind, she reflects. It is not as if he does not know about lots of things that have completely passed her by. Like Netflix. Spotify…

She seats herself beside him on the fallen log, careful to keep a clear distance between them. There are some other plants she would like to collect while she is out, but there is plenty of time before dawn and she has not had a chance just to sit with somebody like this in quite some time.

Sometimes, talking to her flowers is not enough.

Tony holds the joint delicately between finger and thumb. He takes a drag and holds it in for a few seconds. “So, are you gonna, like…make _poison_?” he wheezes when he eventually exhales. He sounds as though he finds the idea hilarious.

“No.”

“Oh.” He looks down at the smouldering joint. “Hey, I’m forgetting my manners.” He holds it out to her. “You wanna…?”

She raises a hand in polite refusal. She even manages to keep it from shaking as she feels the warmth of the smoke across her palm.

_Fire, Neonate. I would advise you to exercise caution._

“Oh, no. It’s all right. I haven’t smoked…grass in a long time.” She could if she wanted, the same way she can fake breathing, even if there would not be much point. She has known several Kindred who smoke, but most of the time it is nothing more than an empty affectation carried over from their mortal lives.

“And I haven’t heard anyone call it “grass” in a long time.” Tony giggles, the joint shaking in his hand. “Or ever, in real life.” She watches warily for any stray sparks or pieces of ash, conscious of how dry the surrounding trees and scrub are after the long, hot summer. She does not want to be responsible for the park burning again. She remembers all too well the terrible fires in 2004 and 2007. She is sure the Bone Gnawers remember them too. She might be able to use movement of the mind to snuff out a small blaze, she supposes, but she does not want to have to do it in front of him.

And just the thought of the flames, leaping and dancing, so bright, so deadly… She can feel herself shivering, her whole body urging her to flee. It is not unlike the Beast; a deep-seated fear that is inherent to her kind and cannot be ignored. Fire, like sunlight, is one of the few things that can destroy a creature like her outright.

“_Der rote Schreck_,” is what _he_ used to call it, dismissively; “the red fright.” “Rotschreck” is the bastardised term used by most Kindred who are less fluent in German.

She can picture him now, the way he used to stand before his roaring fireplace in the Chantry, silhouetted against the golden flames; as if to prove to himself night after night that he did not share the weaknesses of lesser Kindred. _Her_ weaknesses, as he reminded her at every opportunity.

And when she pictures him, the glow of the flames painting his grey face gold, reflecting ruby-bright from the round lenses of his glasses, the terror comes back in icy, drowning waves. She has not breathed naturally in a long time, but in those moments, she remembers what choking felt like.

Hard on the heels of the terror, there usually follows the hatred. And the anger. And in some ways, those are worse. Sometimes, she can feel herself burning up, not from fire but with fury, thirsting for justice, for revenge, and not just for herself. She does not like to think about how far she might travel down that path if she ever allowed herself to set foot upon it.

“Look,” she says, pointing at the night sky, mainly in an effort to distract herself. “Do you see, through that gap in the trees; those four stars that make a…rectangle, and then the others that lead off…like a tail?”

He follows her outstretched finger, squinting into the darkness. “Is that like…the big dipper, or something?”

“Close. It’s the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor. The little bear. And that bright star at the end of its tail is Polaris, the North Star. Sailors…used to use it to navigate.”

“Cool,” says Tony, with genuine enthusiasm.

“And that long line of stars next to it is Draco, the dragon. And_ there_, you can just about see Lyra; the lyre of Orpheus. He…played it to charm the hell-hound Cerberus so he could enter the underworld to find Eurydice, his lost love.”

_“I just think you should be fully aware of what it means to enter into an agreement with _la famiglia_…”_

“Think you could do that with a guitar?” Tony asks, playfully, bursting into her stray memory. This one is of a cluttered, lamplit room, a man with shining black hair and translucent parchment skin, and a bright gold signet ring on the smallest finger of his right hand…

She fakes her smile this time. “Maybe.”

“You sure do know a lot about stars. And not the Hollywood kind.”

She shrugs. “I…read a lot.”

“Reading’s cool,” Tony opines. “More people should read.”

“They should.”

“Is that why you like hanging out at the Observatory?” he wonders, abruptly. “To look at the stars?”

“It’s a good place for it.”

Tony nods sagely at this. “Makes sense.” He gazes up at the silver crescent hanging above them. “Hey, Eva, know what I always think whenever I see the moon?”

“No, what do you always think, Tony?”

“I always think…dudes have _walked_ on that.” He slowly shakes his head in wonderment. “Blows my mind every fucking time.”

That actually makes her laugh; in a fond way, she likes to think. “Somebody…I knew once called that the greatest day in human history.”

“They might have been right.”

She gazes up at the crescent. Its light is just the reflected light of the sun, just as the starlight is the light of a million, million other suns, unimaginably far away. She wonders why she can endure it when the direct light of the sun itself would reduce her to bones and ashes.

_“It is fire and destruction, wasting and scorching the Earth.”_

Science would probably say it is because the light of the moon represents only the tiniest fraction of the sun’s radiance. On the other hand, whatever the Chantry may have taught, science has very little to do with the nature of creatures such as herself.

“I feel a…special connection to the moon,” she tells Tony. “According to Wiccan teachings, she is the Triple Goddess. With her different phases and aspects, she guides us through the mysteries and changes of our existence; birth, love, death; not just for human women, but for all…living things.” And undead things too, she does not add. “She presides over our emotions, the soul, wisdom and magic…”

“Do you really believe in all that?” Tony asks her quietly, sounding awestruck.

She shrugs again. “I’m not sure. When I was young, I was…very interested in those teachings. Some of the things they had to say spoke to me on a very…spiritual level, but I couldn’t claim to be an…observant Wiccan. But the older I get, the more I think it’s…important to have something to hold onto, to draw strength from.” She sees him looking at her, possibly wondering what she means about getting older, because to all outward appearances she is scarcely more than a girl. “Believing in something is better than believing in nothing.”

Tony lets out another helpless giggle. “We believe in nothing, Lebowski!” he declaims in a mock middle European accent: “_Nozzink!_” When he sees her uncomprehending stare, he looks disappointed. “You’ve never seen that movie?”

“I haven’t seen a movie in a long time,” she says, as much to herself as to him.

“Oh, it’s fucking rad,” he assures her, his laughter trailing off into a moment of quiet reflection. “Fucking rad,” he adds belatedly, and she can hear the melancholy creep into his voice.

She pauses for a moment too, wondering whether or not she should say what is on her mind. In the end, she risks it: “Tony…are you…all right?”

He looks a little lost for a second before he replies. He is on the downside of the cannabis rollercoaster, she thinks. “Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, about all the times me and Jerry watched that movie.”

“Your cousin?”

“You know, the one I told you about. The one who…” Tony finishes the half-sentence with an awkward shrug.

“I know.”

“It’s been…fuck, two years.” Tony shakes his head.

“And…how are things?” she asks, looking at the stars instead of his face. “I remember you telling me about your…father. Is he still…?”

“He managed to get on a rehab program,” Tony replies. “It’s some kind of church thing, but they seem legit. He’s a lot better these days. Really.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yeah.” Tony is silent for what feels like an age before he speaks again. “Sometimes I think you’ve got the best idea, Eva.”

That makes her look across at him again. “How do you mean?”

“Well…you’re a free spirit. You come and go as you please, got nobody tying you down. I mean, I assume.” He takes another nervous drag on the joint. “I guess I don’t know much about you, really, but… That’s how it seems to me. Living like that must be…easier, sometimes.”

“You’re not far off the truth,” she says. “And…” She hesitates again, choosing her words carefully, because giving life advice is something she really tries to avoid if she can. “Sometimes it is easier,” she admits, “and other times… I had reasons for choosing to…exist the way I exist, and…I think it’s for the best, most of the time, but… Solitude can sometimes be a burden, even if it is better than what you had before. It’s not something to be undertaken lightly. Sometimes…it’s hard not having anybody to share things with.”

Tony just looks at her for a beat or two. “I…I know what you mean,” he says. “I think.”

They sit in silence for what seems like forever but is really maybe another couple of seconds, time itself dragging and stopping as they gaze into one another’s eyes. She can smell the weed burning even more strongly now she is here next to him. She can almost taste it on the air, can remember what it felt like when she was young and alive; hot and fragrant, flowing down her throat, into her lungs. She thinks his lips would taste the same if she leaned over and kissed him. His skin would taste the same under her hungry, searching lips, as it yielded to her ivory teeth. His blood would taste the same, but better, if she took some, right now, hot from the vein.

_Yes, Neonate. Take him. Drink him._

She can just imagine it; hot, vital, intense, comforting, nourishing; laced with warm, freeing, smoky _bliss_.

_Take him!_

Tony looks as though he might be thinking thoughts not a million miles away from her own, although presumably less bloody. If she took his hand in hers, she thinks, and led him back through the woods to her haven, and showed herself to him, showed him everything she is…

He would welcome her attentions. She can see that he would. He would bleed willingly for her, she is certain, even without the drug clouding his mind. They could lie together, his doped blood flowing through her too, bringing peace and happiness and relaxation with it. She could play some of her music for him; he could play some more for her. She could recall how to summon the blood into her heart, her skin, and they could make love; gentle, sweet, innocent love.

Just like that endless afternoon long ago, with the mattress and the dirty window and the golden light…

He would not refuse. He would not refuse, she tells herself. He _could_ not refuse. They could be together, be each other’s strength and comfort, make a world of their own away from the darkness. She could _live_ again, as long as he lived, and even then…

_“…they almost look like they’re still alive…until you notice how flat and dry they are.”_

She springs to her feet, taking a step or two away from the log, forcing those forbidden thoughts from her mind, back to lurk in whatever dark corner of herself they usually occupy. She is aghast, ashamed, disgusted at herself for even contemplating such things.

_Predator. Deceiver. _

She speaks to him, her voice trembling: “I…I think we sh-should go back now.”

_Seducer. Liar._

“Uh, uh sure, Eva.” He looks and sounds uncomfortable too, even through his haze of smoke. Maybe he too is ashamed of whatever desires or fantasies he may have been entertaining in that moment; but he has no idea what real desire, real hunger, is. He is not like her, not a…

_Monster._

* * *

_His grin does not waver for an instant as he very slowly and very deliberately tightens his grip on her shoulder. Pain explodes through her…_

Evangeline awoke with a cry on her lips.

As she lay listening to the head-splitting trill of the alarm clock, she could still feel the hairy man’s claws sinking into her flesh. The pillow felt wet against her cheek.

She pushed herself half-upright, leaning across Katya to bash the alarm clock into silence and turn on the lamp. Katya remained perfectly still, lying on her back with her arms by her sides, unaffected by the noise.

Evangeline looked down at her. With reluctant fascination, even after seeing her like this so many times before, she gently touched the other woman’s forehead, feeling the coolness and unnatural texture of her skin, feeling the absolute_ stillness_ of her. Katya’s dry lips were bluish grey; the light on her face reflected from her eyes, revealing them as remaining open the tiniest crack. Evangeline withdrew her hand. She knew Katya could not feel or react to anything when she was in this state, but nevertheless took care not to touch her again as she clambered out of bed.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, her dream almost forgotten, thinking instead about herself and Katya during the night, of Katya’s dead hands, dead lips, moving on her body. She could not stop herself from shuddering in disgust, and guiltily admonished herself for it. It wasn’t Katya’s fault she was…how she was, but… She tried to think instead about the other times they were together, remembering the searing, ecstatic _trip_ of giving Katya her blood. Then she thought about the way Katya had declined to drink from her last night, and felt even more guilty than before.

Enough, she told herself. She knew what would help her set her mind at ease. Not the little baggie of grass stashed in her commandeered underwear drawer, because she had to go to work. She rose from the bed and pulled her yoga mat out of the narrow gap between the wardrobe and the dressing table. She unrolled it at the foot of the bed, the only patch of clear floorspace in the over-furnished room.

She sat down, spine straight and head erect, folding her legs into a full lotus with her heels tucked in just the way Sally from the commune had taught her. She rested her hands on her knees, palms facing upwards, closed her eyes and took a deep, deep breath.

And held it…

She let her mind empty, willing the voice in her head to stop talking and the silence to flood in on her from all sides. She luxuriated in the stillness. Just like Katya’s stillness, but not, because she could feel the air pressing on her lungs, could feel her heart’s slow, steady pulse…

Annoyed, she let the breath out again, opening her eyes and slightly adjusting the position of her legs before she tried again. Emptying her mind was a lot harder these days than it once had been.

She closed her eyes again and took another breath.

And held it…

Silence. Stillness. Emptiness. Peace.

She breathed out…

And in…

And held it…

Peace. Silence. Stillness. Calm.

_The thick hair on the man’s head and face is now a crisp black crust plastered to his scorched and blistered flesh…_

This breath came out as a gasp. Her eyes shot open as she uncoiled, panting, from the lotus and climbed back to her feet.

“_Fuck_,” she murmured.

She showered standing in Katya’s old enamel bathtub, running the water as hot as she could bear, maybe to wash away the dreams and memories. The bathroom was much cleaner these days, tiles gleaming, air no longer smelling of mildew but of lemon and soap with a hint of chlorine. One of the first things Evangeline had done when she started spending her nights here was to scrub both bathroom and kitchen from top to bottom, much to Katya’s bemusement. She had also bought a new, floral-patterned shower curtain. The old one had practically been eligible to vote.

She sang, wordlessly and pretty much tunelessly, as she watched soapsuds spiral down the drain between her feet. Then she laughed as she remembered what day it was. She was going to dress nice today, she decided as she returned to the bedroom wrapped in Katya’s only bath-towel. Even if nobody else knew or asked why.

She dried herself, then dressed in her new red kaftan dress and her favourite white boots. She brushed her hair at Katya’s dressing table, wrangling it into two neat braids, shining on her shoulders like copper telephone cables. She helped herself to a dab of Katya’s perfume; it smelled of sandalwood and musk and old, old flowers. It probably wasn’t one dollar eighty from the drugstore.

She regarded Katya over her shoulder in the mirror, lying in bed pale and motionless. An effigy on a marble tomb.

Evangeline made coffee and toast in the now clean and bright kitchen. She cooked most nights, dinner for one, although if Katya was awake and at home they would sit and talk while she ate. Evangeline bought all the groceries with her wages from the bookstore. Katya always had plenty of money, although how she received it and from where remained as big a mystery as exactly what she did “at work.” Evangeline did her very best never to have to take any from her. It would have felt wrong, somehow. It would have added another uncomfortable facet to…whatever they were not calling this strange domestic arrangement into which they had stumbled.

She ate in the library, sat at one of the tall windows to enjoy the early morning sunlight. She always opened the velvet curtains when she was here during the day, and was probably the first person to do so in a very long time. The first time, she had been shocked by the dust and cobwebs she had never noticed by lamplight. Katya had grumbled a little on waking to find the big room newly spick and span. She claimed, half-seriously, to have liked the cobwebs, although Evangeline doubted that she had even been aware of them.

From the window, as she sipped her coffee, she could just see a narrow slice of Central Park West where it crossed 104th Street, jammed with rush hour traffic including fleets of the ever-present yellow cabs. The treetops of the park beyond twinkled like emeralds in the sun. With another pang of guilt and regret, she realised she had not seen her friends from the commune in weeks. Her thing with Katya had become so intense, so quickly, she had not really had time for anybody else, or even to think about much apart from the strange new world into which she had dipped her toes.

Maybe after work this afternoon, she could…

It was an enticing thought at first, but longing quickly turned to reluctance, even dread. Patrick and the others would almost certainly be full of innocent questions about where she had been, what she had been doing; questions she was not sure she could, or should, answer.

She rose too quickly from her chair, almost upending the side table where Katya had deposited her current reading. _The Hobbit_ by J.R.R. Tolkien sat on top of _The Teachings of Don Juan_ by Carlos Castaneda, bookmarks peeking from between their pages. Evangeline smiled to herself as she recalled the discussions of Castaneda’s work in Professor West’s class at Barnard. From a professional anthropologist’s viewpoint, it was debatable as to which of the two books on the table was the more inventive work of fiction. Still, since Evangeline had turned her on to some of her own interests, Katya’s horizons seemed to be broadening all the time. Evangeline had even caught her humming pop tunes a couple of times, although she always denied it. If it all helped shake up this…whatever it was Katya worked for, then that had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

She crossed to the nearly new TV set, another sign of Katya’s new determination to move with the times. She had decided they needed one now that Evangeline was practically living with her. And Evangeline liked watching TV with Katya, or mostly watching Katya’s reactions; often surprise, usually bafflement, occasionally delight at one show or another. _Laugh-In_ had become a firm Katya favourite, and who could have predicted that? For some reason, she always laughed like a drain at the German soldier with the round glasses who found everything “_verrrry interestink…but shtupid!_” Evangeline had asked her once why she thought he was so funny. Katya had just said he reminded her of someone she knew.

She turned on the TV, waiting for the tube to warm up and twisting the dial from NBC to CBS, looking for the news. She already had an idea what the main, the only, story was going to be today. As expected, the striped static cleared to show an enormous white and black spire, tall and straight and gently steaming beside an even more enormous scaffold of interlocking girders. Both rocket and launch pad were hazy, a little blurred, clearly distant from the camera. As the picture slowly zoomed in on the rocket’s finned base, the familiar, stentorian tones of Walter Cronkite explained the scene for any viewers who had been living in a cave these past few years:

_“…on history’s greatest adventure. Here at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a massive, complex and…”_

Evangeline turned the TV off again. She needed to get to work.

She washed her plate and cup in the kitchen and returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth. A little food, sunlight and caffeine, she found, had left her feeling a lot better now than on waking. The dream and the awkwardness with Katya felt faraway in the light of day, almost forgotten. Yet as she swilled water around her mouth and spat minty froth into the sparkling basin, she caught sight of her own face in the mirror on the medicine cabinet. She was not sure why, but for a moment it was like looking at a different person. She shuddered at the haunted look she saw in that person’s eyes.

When she bustled into Artie’s Used Books twenty minutes later, she found its namesake futzing around with a TV of his own, precariously perched at one end of the counter. It was a lot smaller than Katya’s, its original antenna replaced by one improvised from an old wire coat-hanger. Artie, a short, rotund man with a holey cardigan and a wild mop of curly grey-white hair, was engrossed in adjusting it with the nervy precision of a safecracker working on a lock. The monochrome image of Cronkite, sitting at a desk with the mighty Saturn V in the distance behind him, wildly jumped and flickered.

_“…referring, of course, to the…hisss…window, which…hisss…until nine thirty-two…”_

“Morning, Artie,” she called as she took up her place behind the counter.

Artie gave a faint grunt of acknowledgement as he continued to manipulate the antenna.

“It’s a nice day,” she said, by way of conversation.

“Nice day?” Artie rounded on her as if she had just made a crack about his mother. “It’s the greatest day in human history!”

_“…the lighting conditions during that delicate operation of getting the lunar module down…”_

“Where’d the TV come from? It definitely wasn’t there when I left yesterday.”

In his moment of passion, Artie had actually succeeded in getting both picture and sound to remain almost stable for now. This achievement seemed to calm him down. “I just thought… I don’t know, I’d regret not seeing this as it happened. And in the unlikely event we ever get any customers in here again, maybe they’d like to see it too.” He suddenly seemed to notice her dress: “You planning on going dancing?”

“Well, you know, I thought…” She smiled privately. “It’s the greatest day in human history, right? Might as well make an effort.”

“Darn straight it is.” The TV picture jumped again. Artie slammed his hand down hard on top of the set, restoring the image to relative normality. It showed the rocket on its pad now, shimmering slightly in the Florida heat as the newsman droned on:

_“…conditions, uh, unsuitable for the launch…”_

The camera slowly panned down the rocket’s gleaming length. Sunlight flashed from the white vapour that billowed from between its various sections.

“Heh, it looks just like a…” Evangeline stopped herself before the end of the sentence.

Artie’s bushy eyebrows disappeared into his cloud of hair. “Like a what?”

“You know, like a…” She shrugged; what the hell? Artie was always ready to discuss obscure subjects and far out ideas. He said it was why he liked employing college kids, as well as the fact that they would work for less. “You read enough anthropology textbooks you soon get to recognise an abstract depiction of a phallus when you see one. The symbolism can’t be coincidental.”

“Symbolism?” Artie sounded sceptical.

“In a lot of cultures, the moon is a feminine symbol,” Evangeline explained. “She represents the Goddess; motherhood, menstruation…”

“Good Lord,” said Artie.

“…female power and independence. There’s got to be some sort of symbolism in a whole load of _men_ getting together to launch a great big metal…_dick_ at her.”

“Language,” said Artie. He shook his head. “Young people today, you got it on the brain.”

“What?”

“_It_.” Artie gazed at the shaky TV picture in wonderment. “I look at that, all I see is a…” He shook his head again, wistfully this time. “A, a dream made real. I used to read all those science fiction magazines when I was a kid. You know; _Astounding_; _Amazing Stories_; _Fantastic Adventures_… I grew up dreaming of rocket-ships and alien planets, but I knew it was all just make-believe. Now, though…it’s isn’t. I feel lucky I’ve lived to see it.”

The TV was now showing the invited dignitaries taking their seats to watch the launch. It took Evangeline a second to recognise the tall older man wearing sunglasses in the centre of the screen, to realise why the camera was focusing on him. “Oh my God, it’s LBJ.”

She watched the former President chatting boisterously but silently with other members of the besuited elite, while Cronkite’s voiceover blithely continued:

_“…additionally, bring back samples of the moon, the lunar surface, to deploy scientific experiments…”_

“Huh,” said Artie. “Haven’t seen him on TV since before the election. I voted for him in ’64.”

“Well, at least you can say it was before he killed all those people in Vietnam.”

“Would’ve voted for him again if he’d run in ’68,” Artie countered. “Come on, I know voting isn’t hip these days, but you can’t say either Johnson or Humphrey wouldn’t have been better than Nixon.”

“You’re setting that bar pretty low.”

_ “…the so-called Landing Site Two, which is the preferred landing site…”_

Evangeline frowned at the screen. “That’s what really takes the shine off for me,” she mused. “People like Lyndon Johnson and Dick Nixon getting involved. Or just thinking about how many millions, no, billions, they’ve spent sending a few guys into space to make a point to the Russians, when there are so many people struggling to survive, sleeping on the streets…”

“It’s always amazing to me,” Artie wryly replied. “People who distrust the government so much on everything else apparently trust them not to just blow the money they’d save abandoning space on more fighter planes or nuclear missiles or a raise for congressmen or whatever. They certainly wouldn’t spend it on helping the little people.”

“Maybe not.” She had to admit he might have a point there.

“At least this is keeping American engineers and scientists in work,” he continued, “without them building things that’d actually hurt people. And maybe…I don’t know…” He paused, watching the TV, listening to Cronkite’s time-filling patter about landing sites and launch windows. The broadcast cut to a camera mounted somewhere high inside the launch tower, looking down on the rocket in ghostly black and white. “Maybe something like this can inspire people, give them a sense of wonder, a sense of hope. Show them the future don’t have to be just more of the same.” He looked at her with none of his usual combativeness or irascibility. “I mean, isn’t that what your, uh, flowerchildren want too?”

“I guess.”

“Hey,” said Artie, his moment of reflection abruptly melting into something darker and more harried, “don’t forget it’s Wednesday.”

Evangeline knew what he was saying. With a prickle of foreboding, she opened the cash register and very carefully counted twenty-five dollars onto the counter. She put the money into a plain brown envelope and left it next to the register.

They watched TV in relative quiet for around another half hour. A couple of customers came in and watched it too while Evangeline served them. One elderly man in a battered porkpie hat was a friend of Artie’s and they had to discuss the sorry state of the world and the city, loudly, while Evangeline tried to listen to the broadcast. Cronkite had been joined by the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and they were talking about today’s launch paving the way for space settlements, orbital industries… The kind of thing Artie was probably thinking about when he spoke of a better future. Evangeline had the suspicion that if humans ever did settle on other planets, if they hadn’t learned how to live in better, gentler ways in the meantime it would just mean exporting Earth’s problems instead of fixing them.

The old man finally went on his way, an almost-mint copy of _Mr. Midshipman Hornblower _under his arm. Clarke’s voice provided urbane British background music:

_“…we’re going to find some surprises on the moon. Not necessarily on this first flight, but I’m sure, eventually…”_

The bell over the door clanged again. Another customer, Evangeline thought, before she saw the colour drain from Artie’s face.

“Uh…uh, morning, Paulie.”

Paulie, a heavyset, middle-aged man with slicked-back badger-stripe hair, did not return the greeting. He wore a very expensive-looking suit with the sheen of silk, spit-shined shoes and chunky gold rings on both beefy hands. He did not walk to the counter so much as strut.

Sometimes, you could judge a book by its cover.

“You got something for me?” His voice was a rock-hard Brooklyn rasp.

“Yeah, sure, Paulie,” Artie replied with ghastly false friendliness. “Right in the usual place.”

Paulie picked up the envelope, weighing it in his hand, rings glinting. “Feels light.” His piggy eyes narrowed theatrically. “Sure you ain’t holding out on me, Arthur?”

“N-no, Paulie,” Artie stammered. “It’s all there.”

“It better be.” Paulie shoved the envelope into his already bulging inside pocket as he glanced around the store. “Hey, what’s with the TV? You, uh, turning this joint into a bar or something?”

Evangeline watched Artie hesitate, trying to think of a safe reply. He was practically shaking, while Paulie stood there calm and confident, looking enormously pleased with himself for no reason she could see.

_The man lets out a purring, animal laugh, his eyes flaring like coals. He is enjoying her terror, making it last…_

“Don’t you know what day it is?” she asked.

Paulie looked at her as if she had just grown an extra head. She had surprised herself as much as him. She did not think she had ever spoken to him before. He shrugged, nonplussed. “It’s collection day.”

“No,” she answered, very slowly, as patronisingly as possible. “It’s the greatest day in human history.”

“Huh.” Paulie looked at the TV, unconvinced. “No shit.”

“D-don’t worry about her, Paulie,” Artie stuttered, pacifyingly. “I-I’m sure someone like you isn’t interested…”

Paulie’s face instantly clouded over. Evangeline felt the temperature in the store drop a degree or two, and so did Artie, from the way he instantly clammed up. The room became very still, silent apart from the gentle babble of the TV.

_“…seconds on the Apollo mission, the flight to land the first men on the moon…”_

“Someone like me?” Paulie asked, with dangerous evenness. “Whaddaya mean someone like me?

Artie stared, horrified. “I, I, I mean…you know…”

“No, Arthur.” Paulie took a step towards him. “I don’t know.”

“I mean…I mean, a, a, a busy guy like you…”

Very gently, Paulie placed a ham-sized hand on Artie’s cardigan. “You saying I’m dumb?”

“N-no, Paulie!” Artie yelped. “No…!”

Evangeline saw the knitted material bunch up in Paulie’s enormous paw, his other hand tightening into a huge, ring-studded fist. “You saying I’m…?”

_Pain explodes through her…_

“_He’s _not saying you’re dumb.” Again, it was like listening to herself from outside. She spoked without conscious thought.

Paulie released Artie, leaving him tottering on his feet, and slowly turned towards Evangeline. “What did you say to me?”

“She, she, she didn’t say _anything_, Paulie,” Artie desperately insisted. “Please…”

Paulie’s eyes did not leave Evangeline. “She’s a big girl, Arthur. She knows whether or not she said something.” He came right up to the counter, laying his hand on the wood. “Now, sweetheart…what did you say to me?”

“I said…” Evangeline could see how scared Artie was and that just made her angrier. “_He’s_ not saying you’re dumb.”

“Paulie…”

The store became very quiet again as Evangeline met Paulie’s flat, mean gaze. She looked him straight in the eye, amazed by how little fear she felt. Whoever he was, whatever he might do, she had seen, and survived, far worse. She had _woken up_ this morning next to something far more frightening than some two-bit wiseguy.

_“…ignition sequence at eight point nine seconds. We are approaching the sixty-second mark…”_

And then, to her astonishment, Paulie blinked first. “Take it easy, Arthur,” he said, putting the hand into his hip pocket. “I was busting your balls. Although, she has more of those than you got.” He produced a fat bankroll secured by a thick rubber band and peeled off a crisp ten-dollar bill. He held it out to Evangeline between his first two fingers. “That’s for standing your ground, kid. There’s a lot of grown men in this town, tough guys, wouldn’t dare talk to me like that.”

She almost told him she didn’t want his dirty money, but then she saw Artie. His eyes pleaded with her just to take it.

Paulie, predictably, held onto the bill for a moment, making her pull it from his grip as their eyes met again. “You know what they say, though. Just ‘cause something’s funny the first time…”

She did not trust herself to speak without making the situation worse again. Instead, she clenched her teeth and nodded silently at him as a sudden burst of excitement sounded from the TV:

_“…ten…nine…ignition sequence starts…six…five…four…”_

The screen once again showed the rocket standing tall on its launchpad, now with puffs of black smoke starting to flow from its base, shot through with bright flame. And then, with an audible sound like a great intake of breath, something seemed to suck the smoke back in.

“Oh boy,” said Artie, Paulie momentarily forgotten.

_“…three…two…one…zero. All engines running.”_

With a roar like thunder, the great rocket rose from the pad; slowly, heavily, balancing on a white-hot pillar of fire. It immediately began to tilt, subtly at first, to launch the spacecraft at its tip onto precisely the right trajectory.

_“Lift-off! We have a lift-off, thirty-two minutes past the hour…”_

All three of them watched the Saturn V continue to rise, rumbling. Its blinding exhaust flame made everything else seem dim. The launch tower disappeared from view as the camera followed the rocket into the darkening sky, faster and faster…

“Oh boy,” Artie repeated, very softly.

_“What a moment. Man on the way to the moon…”_

The rocket pierced layers of cotton-candy cloud, shuddering slightly under its own immense power as its tilt gradually increased. The exhaust was a cluster of great white spearheads, pointing back at the ground as the rocket climbed and climbed, shrinking into the distance.

_“Downrange one mile. Altitude three…four…miles now…”_

“Huh,” said Paulie, sounding impressed in spite of himself as he returned his money to his pocket. “How about that?”

When Paulie had left, Artie turned off the TV, cutting off the endless post-launch analysis from the talking heads. He stood in front of the dead screen for a second. “Evangeline…” He sighed. “What were you thinking?”

“I…” She hesitated. She regretted nothing, but was not really sure how to put her thoughts and feeling into words. “I don’t like bullies.”

“Bullies?” Artie echoed, incredulously. “That was _Paulie Puttanesca_ you were talking back to just now.”

“Yeah, I know.” She shrugged. “He comes by every Wednesday collecting his protection money.”

“And do you have any idea who he kicks some of that money upstairs to?” Artie demanded.

“No.”

“Some very scary people, that’s who.”

“There are scarier people out there,” Evangeline replied with quiet assurance. “A lot scarier.”

“As if you’d know.” Artie ran a hand nervously through his curls. “I need a cigarette. I don’t even smoke.”

“You’re a good guy, Artie,” she told him, from the heart.

“Huh, thanks,” he sarcastically replied.

“You don’t deserve to get shoved around by a…a piece of shit like him. It stinks.”

“Language,” said Artie. “And it does, but… Look, I’m not mad at you. I just… You could get in a lot of trouble crossing guys like that. Be careful. You remember that guy Phil from a couple blocks down? _He_ decided he wasn’t going to pay Paulie anymore.”

“Phil?” Evangeline felt a little sick. “You mean the guy who owned the coffee shop? That place that burned down last year?”

Artie nodded. “I rest my case.”

“I’m…_tired_ of being careful,” she said, very sincerely. “I’m tired of people like Paulie, like the cops, like Dick Nixon. They don’t matter. None of that _matters_.” She let out a breath, her mind churning with all the things she wanted to say but could not. “You have no idea. There are _things_ in this world… _This…_ This isn’t all there is.”

Artie looked quizzical. “A magic mushroom told you that?”

“I’m serious.”

“I understand,” said Artie, although he really didn’t. “I do. When I was your age, I used to smoke reefer and listen to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger records, and dream about a revolution.”

Evangeline had seen Seeger play a folk club down in the Village about a year ago; he’d been good, and the oldest person in the room by at least a decade. And she knew Woody Guthrie had been a lot more than Arlo’s dad. She could not help laughing a little, though, at what Artie had just said. “_You_ used to smoke reefer?” She was not sure she had ever heard it called that outside of old public information films.

“Sure. My buddies and me, we used to go uptown on the Third Avenue El and buy it from this Haitian guy on 135th Street.” Artie gave a little laugh too. “We felt like criminal masterminds. That’s the trouble with you kids these days; you think you invented everything.” He went quiet for a second, thinking. “And then the war came, the last war, and I got drafted and sent to Europe to fight those lousy Nazis. Which I did gladly. I’m as anti-war as the next guy, but Nazis are Nazis. And yeah, I know some of them helped build that rocket we were just watching.” He went quiet again. “I saw things over there, you know? Ever hear of a place called Dachau?”

“Yeah,” said Evangeline, very quietly, thinking of the soldier on _Laugh-In_ and how he wasn’t that funny, whoever he might remind Katya of.

“I saw things.” Artie paused for a long time before speaking again. “And it was about then I realised, the world… The world has got a heck of a lot wrong with it. And the people who end up ruling it are…well, a lot of them are very bad people. And hate and greed motivate a lot more people than not. And it’s always been that way, ever since…since the first caveman hit some other caveman on the head with a rock. And smoking reefer and dreaming of a revolution isn’t going to change that.”

“Maybe,” Evangeline said, “but that doesn’t mean change can’t happen.”

“No, but it means it won’t be easy. To change the world, you’ve got to change people. Not a person, or a hundred people, or a thousand people, but _people_. And the odds of doing that are pretty long.”

“We’ve still got to keep trying, though,” she insisted. “You said it yourself; you’ve got to have hope. If you can’t hope for a future that’s not just the same as the present, then what’s the point of anything?”

“You’re not wrong, Evangeline,” said Artie, with a thin smile. “But bide your time, pick your battles. And _please_…cool it with the righteous fury next time Paulie comes in, okay? I need these kneecaps.”

“Okay.” She nodded, even as she remembered how obviously Paulie had enjoyed Artie’s fear and felt herself seething inside.

The rest of the working day passed in awkward quiet, with Artie showing every sign of still being shaken by this morning’s encounter, and understandably so. After the next customer had come in, however, it had been clear that that was it for the day as far as candid discussion went. He spoke maybe twenty words to her all afternoon, including when he decided to close an hour early and wished her a good night as she left the store.

It would be a few hours yet before Katya was up and about. Evangeline wandered aimlessly for a while along Columbus Avenue, navigating the packed shoppers and tourists, looking at the windows of the other stores that were still open. She did not really see them. She was thinking about men walking on the moon, about how the greatest day in human history had not turned out so great for Artie. She was thinking about what today meant for her and whether anybody else even knew. She was thinking about Paulie’s smug, uncomprehending, cruelty, about how guys like him ran the world at every level, petty or great, and apparently not just the world of the living.

She was thinking about blood.

_“Don’t want your_ money_, little girly.”_

That made her remember the ten dollars, screwed up in her purse like a shameful thing. She took it out and slowly unfolded it. As she looked down at Alexander Hamilton creased in her hand, she decided he had to go.

One thing was for sure; she was not about to spend the money on herself. At first, she thought about finding a homeless person and handing it over, but then worried a whole ten dollars might suggest certain temptations to someone who could do without them, or even make them a target for others on the street. Next, she thought about Katya, and her own feelings of guilt that morning. A gift suddenly seemed like a nice idea. A gift to make it up to Katya, even though she was not sure Katya thought there was anything to make up. A gift bought with money made who knew how by a guy like Paulie? Some gift. At least she would be making something good come of the whole ugly incident, she thought. Laundering the dirty ten dollars, but not the way guys like Paulie usually meant.

Katya liked old things. Evangeline peered into the cluttered window of the antiques store a few blocks from the bookstore, wincing a little at some of the prices she could see on the gewgaws behind the plate glass. Ten bucks might _seem_ like a lot of money to someone like herself, but to the sort of people who shopped for _objets d’art_…

She saw one thing that looked interesting, and only eight seventy-five according to its tag. It was a little glass ball nestled in a claw-footed brass stand, like a smaller version of the things you saw fortune tellers using in movies. She contemplated the way the sun struck rainbow rays from its smooth, curved surface. Would Katya…?

“Hey, Red!”

The shout made her jump, the ten dollars and the crystal ball forgotten as she turned around.

“I thought it was you!” The young man who had called out to her hurried towards her with a broad grin. He grinned at just about everything.

“Patrick.” Evangeline found herself nearly grinning too. She let him pull her into his usual bearhug and plant a kiss on top of her head. He was tall enough to do that.

“Haven’t seen you around in a while.” Patrick drew a few curious glances from passers-by. He was hard to ignore with his height, his loud voice, his long mane of dirty-blond hair and matching beard. That and the fact he was wearing a poncho, shirtless, on a city street with an acoustic guitar slung across his back. Still, they were glances, not stares, and less numerous or hostile than they would have been a year or two ago. Hippies were a common enough sight in New York now.

“Everyone misses you down at the park,” Patrick said as they started to walk along the avenue, joining the sidewalk traffic. “Folks have been asking about you.”

“I’ve just been busy,” she answered. “With the end of the semester, and…you know, I had exams…”

“I remember what that’s like.” Patrick had briefly been a chemistry major at Columbia, before being turned on to acid and dropping out shortly afterwards. His grin faded for a moment. “Some people were worried something…_bad_ might have happened to you. You know, that guy who was attacking women back in the spring…?”

“I thought that was all over now?”

_“…burn the whole pack out…”_

“Never any shortage of guys like that,” Patrick pointed out. He brightened again as he seemed to recall something else. “Hey, I saw your roomie, Tessa.”

“Thelma.”

“Thelma, right.” He nodded to himself, as if committing it to memory. “Saw me playing my guitar in the subway station and thought she’d come talk shit to me.”

“Sounds like Thelma.”

“This was like, a couple weeks ago.” He frowned, as if trying to remember. “She said she was spending the summer with her folks in Bridgeport, and I asked what you were doing, and she said…”

“I’m, um…” Evangeline cleared her throat. “I’m, um, staying with a friend.”

“That’s what she said,” Patrick confirmed. “Well, she _said_ you’d found yourself an old lady. Which is cool,” he hastily added. “Real cool. I dig chicks digging chicks. Oh, man, I didn’t mean it like that. What I mean…”

“It’s not…” Evangeline stopped herself and shrugged. “It _is_ like that, I guess, but I mean… She’s cool. We don’t _own_ each other or anything.”

“Hey, your trip, your rules.” 

They stopped at the movie theatre on the corner of the next cross-street. The marquee urged them to watch _True Grit_ or _The Wild Bunch_, or if the Wild West wasn’t their bag, the posters next to the box office recommended Robert Vaughn and George Segal in _The Bridge at Remagen _or Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in _Easy Rider_. Only the last title held any appeal at all for Evangeline.

“Look,” said Patrick, without meeting her eyes, “none of my business, but… Red, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“No,” she said, although she was not sure that was really true.

“When I saw you just now… It’s been a while, but…”

“What is it?”

“Well, since I last saw you, you’ve…” Patrick looked as uncomfortable as she felt. “You’ve lost weight, you’ve got those circles under your eyes…”

She was surprised, but not as much as she should have been. Perhaps that was why her reflection in the bathroom mirror had seemed strange this morning? Artie had not commented on any change in her appearance, but then he saw her most days, so if it had been a gradual development…? Artie, though, probably would not have said anything anyway. And Katya…?

“Well, you got personal,” she told Patrick, with a flash of annoyance, “but what’s the question?”

“You started shooting up?”

“What?” She stared at him, stunned.

“You know,” he said. “I mean…_H_. Junk. Smack.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” She pulled up the sleeves of her dress, brandishing her arms at him. “No fucking way!”

Her raised voice got them a couple of looks from people passing on the street. Patrick glanced around nervously, but she could see his relief at the sight of her unmarked skin. “Hey, I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” he said. “It’s your trip and you’ve got to do what you got to do, but…” He sighed. “More and more of the folks on the scene are getting into that shit. It’s getting heavy. Real heavy. It’s real easy to score these days; easier than acid, even, since the Feds started cracking down on the chemists. Some guy I know, he said G.I.s are smuggling it back from the ‘Nam inside body-bags, and half the soldiers in-country are junkies by now. They don’t tell you _that_ on the six o’clock news.”

“Well, I’d never get into that,” she told him. “I know what it does to people.”

“Lot of people end up doing things they say they’d never do,” Patrick gently reminded her. “You know that kid Marty? Used to hang with Sally and her friends?”

“Yeah, I know Marty.” Evangeline could just picture him. “He’s a sweet guy.”

“Better guitar player than I’ve ever been,” Patrick said. “He OD’d about a month ago.”

“Oh my God…” Evangeline felt as if she had been slapped. “He’s dead?”

“Sally found him lying in a stairwell, needle still in his arm. He was, like, eighteen years old.” Patrick shook his head helplessly, as if he could not quite believe it himself. 

“Oh, no.” Evangeline sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Heavy shit, man. Speaking personally, I would very much not recommend it.” When he looked at her, she could see how worried he was. She could see more than that. “So, if it’s not that…what is it? You in some kind of…?”

“It’s nothing,” she replied. “I’m…” She wanted to tell him she was cool, that everything was cool, to set his mind at ease, but…

_She can feel the goose-bumps standing up on her shrinking skin, her heart pounding as she gasps for breath…_

“Patrick, what if I told you…?” She stopped herself short. There were so many things she could never tell him. And even if she could, like Artie he could never understand.

Standing this close to him, she could feel his body’s warmth. She could feel his breath in her hair. That feeling of longing came surging back, the same one she had felt sitting at the window this morning; the longing for her other life, for the time before. For sunlight and laughter and innocence. For not knowing as much as she knew now.

“Can we…go somewhere?” she asked him, impulsively. “You know, just…go somewhere?”

He just frowned at first, but then she saw comprehension dawn across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Cool.”

Evangeline did not know how much later it was. Time had ceased to hold much meaning. She huddled with Patrick on the squeaking, dilapidated mattress. They pawed at each other, their faced pressed together, their lips and tongues working, sharing smoky cannabis saliva. They murmured softly, giggling at the things they were doing together, or at nothing in particular. They moaned and gasped appreciatively at some of the things they felt. They pressed their bodies together, two hearts thumping joyfully, inches apart. Their naked skin was as warm as the yellow sunlight bathing them through the dirty window. Warmer than that. Patrick was _hot_. Hot and smooth as silk. His mouth was _hot_ as he kissed her hair, her mouth, other parts of her. Hot and soft and wet and _alive_. They moved together, inside and around one another.

“Yes,” said Evangeline. “_Yes_.”

Afterwards, they lay together in the empty room in the abandoned apartment in the boarded-up tenement house where Patrick and his friends sometimes crashed when it was too cold or wet to sleep out of doors. Evangeline could feel Patrick’s chest rising and falling against her cheek as he caught his breath. She could feel his arm around her, not as strong as Katya’ arm but, like the rest of him, so _hot_.

“You feeling better now?” he murmured, his mouth brushing her hair.

“Yeah,” she answered. And it was true. She did feel better, and not just in the obvious way, but the way she sometimes did after exerting herself physically; muscles and lungs tingling, skin burning, blood surging. But that was all she felt, she realised. A mundane pleasure, not that perilous, blinding, soul-dissolving ecstasy she felt when… It was nothing like that.

Nothing was.

She rolled off Patrick and sat up on the mattress, hugging her knees to her chest as she gazed out of the cracked, grimy window, through the gap someone had made in the nailed-on boards. The light slanting from the gap was starting to change its angle, shifting as subtly as a tilting space rocket, its colour slowly deepening from golden yellow to orange-red.

“I’m not sure we should have done this,” she told Patrick as he used his finger to draw shivering patterns across her bare back.

“Why not?” he asked, confused. “You wanted it, I wanted it…” He stopped. “Oh. Right. Your old lady. I thought you said she was cool?”

“It’s not that.” She looked over her shoulder at him lying full-length beside her. “I’ve missed you and the others. I’ve missed _this_. I really have, but…”

“We’ve all missed you too.” Patrick was quiet for a moment, before adding awkwardly: “I’ve missed you.”

“Like I said, though, I’ve been busy. And…” She fell silent, mind racing with a hundred conflicting thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, confused.

“It’s… You’re right, it is…the woman I’m seeing,” she admitted, to herself as much as to him.

“Is she…?” He hesitated. “Is she, like…hurting you?”

“_No_!” she answered, as appalled as she had been by him asking if she was on heroin. “No, she’s cool. She really is. She’s been so good to me. It’s just… We were just friends, really, at first, but things…things got pretty intense pretty quickly, you know?”

“Love can be like that,” Patrick observed, sitting up beside her. “Even if you’re trying to avoid them, sometimes strings just have a way of attaching themselves.”

“Yeah,” Evangeline mused. “Love. That’s what it is, I guess, but… You know how we’ve always said love is nothing but a good thing?”

“It’s all you need, they say.”

“Have you ever…?” She looked out of the window again because it was easier. “Have you ever needed someone, though; really _needed_ them, so you can’t even imagine what it would be like without them?”

“No,” he confessed. “And I’m not certain I’d want to.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath, let it out, watched the sky slowly turn to blood. “It’s a little scary, to be honest. I’m not really sure what I’ve got into. Sometimes I wonder what we’re both getting out of it. Are we just using each other? Is there more I could do? Should I expect more from her? I feel… I just feel like I’m out my depth.”

Patrick frowned in thought. “Figure the only way you’re gonna find out the answers to those questions is if you ask her.”

“I guess.” She took his hand, so warm, and squeezed it gently. “And… Well, other things have happened since last time I saw you. I…” She hesitated, wondering whether she should say any more, but the next words came out almost compulsively. “It’s hard to explain, but… You spend a lot of time out in the city, Patrick. Have you ever seen anything…strange? Anything people would think you were crazy if you told them about it?”

“I see strange things all the time.” Patrick chuckled. “It’s the company I keep. You know, Tommy told me he was in the park by himself one night and he saw a guy turn into a wolf, right in front of him. But that’s Tommy. Always tripping.”

“Yeah,” said Evangeline, letting go of his hand, disappointed by his answer. “There are just…strange things going on out there, you know? Stranger than anyone knows. Be careful when you’re out on the streets.”

“I’m always careful,” Patrick said, the way careless people did.

The room was a lot darker and cooler now than it had been. The shadows had lengthened and deepened. The sky glowed like an open furnace. “I should go,” she told Patrick, making to retrieve her clothes from the floor. “It’s getting late.” Her new dress had dust on it. She felt sadder about that than she probably should.

“Hey, Red,” said Patrick as he watched her dressing. “I’m gonna go meet some of the others. We’re heading down to the Village tonight; there’s some kind of happening going on, a couple bands playing.” He grinned at her. “If you want to come, we’re gonna turn on, tune in…expand our _minds_, baby.”

“That’s tempting,” she replied, not untruthfully, “but I need to get back.”

“It’s cool,” said Patrick. “Just thought I’d ask. But if you’re free middle of next month, there’s this big festival we heard about that we were thinking of checking out. Some place upstate. Figure we can hitchhike, or Mikey might be able to borrow his brother’s van again. A little road trip for old time’s sake. Some guy told me Janis Joplin’s gonna be on the bill. I know you love her.”

“Sounds far out.” It really did. The longing came back for an instant, even stronger than before.

“Want me to walk you home?” Patrick asked, finally reaching for his own clothes. “It’s getting dark. Like you said, can’t be too careful out there.”

“I’ll be okay.” She finished pulling on her boots and made for the sagging, peeling door. “See you soon, Patrick.”

“Later, Red.”

It was only when she got outside that Evangeline realised just how late it was. The last molten dregs of sunlight were dribbling down the sky towards Riverside Park. She briskly walked the eight blocks or so back to Katya’s building, but by the time she arrived it was fully dark. She hurried past Joan in the lobby and quickly climbed the stairs.

“Hi, Katya,” she called as she walked into the lamplit library.

Katya did not reply. She looked as though she had just woken. She stood at the windows in her towelling robe, hair dishevelled, peering through a gap in the now closed curtains. Just the way she had that night when…

“Hi, Katya.” Evangeline knew she had heard her the first time.

“You’re late,” said Katya, softly, turning from the window. “When I woke and you weren’t here, I was worried about you. You know I don’t like you being out alone after dark.”

“I was fine,” Evangeline protested. “I stuck to the main streets, made sure I only went where there were lights and plenty of people around. You know I don’t take chances anymore. Not since…”

Katya did not seem reassured. “It’s dangerous.”

“I know…_Mom_.” Normally, that sort of cheek earned her a tut of mock-disapproval from Katya, but tonight she did not even flicker. Evangeline crossed to where she was standing, putting a hand on her arm as she leaned in to kiss her cold cheek. “I’m here now.” Katya took a step back, regarding her strangely. She glanced down at the dust mark on Evangeline’s dress, wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice still low but very brittle. “You must have finished work hours ago.”

“I…” Evangeline took another deep breath. “I bumped into a friend of mine. We, um, got talking, and…and…” She hesitated, but she knew she had to be honest. She did not feel ashamed or embarrassed about anything she had done, but… “Well, we…”

“It’s all right,” said Katya. “I can smell what you did.”

Evangeline was momentarily lost for words. “Katya…”

“I can smell him on you.” Katya did not raise her voice, and somehow that was worse. “I can smell where he rubbed his _sweat_ all over you. I can smell where he…” Her composure finally broke, a fat, bloody tear slowly crawling down her cheek. She turned her head to one side as if to conceal it.

Evangeline tried to reach for her again, but Katya moved away. “I’m sorry, Katya. I didn’t know… I thought we agreed we didn’t own one another. I mean, you don’t really tell me about the other people you, you _feed_ from…”

“None of them mean anything to me,” Katya interjected. “Not the way you do.”

“Maybe not, but we both know what…what feeding involves, and… I thought we said we weren’t going to be jealous or uptight about things. Live and let live, you know?”

Katya sobbed quietly, hiding her face behind her hair. “I am jealous, though. Jealous of _him_, because you can give him what you can’t give me.”

Evangeline stared, open-mouthed, as she realised what she meant. “Oh _no_, Katya…”

“I just… I just wanted us to be…lovers, the way other people are lovers. I just wanted to remember what that was like, to feel alive again, to feel _normal_. I tried…tried so hard…” Katya sniffed loudly, trying to wipe her face with her hands and succeeding only in smearing them with her blood. The strong, coppery scent of it filled the air. “I know, I know, I know, I’m disgusting. I disgust you. When I touch you, when I…put my…my cold, dead hands on you…”

“No, Katya…” Evangeline could feel her own eyes stinging.

“But this…warm boy of yours, you can bear his touch.” Katya hung her head. “_I’m_ the one who should be sorry, Evangeline. If you want…if you want that, it would be wrong of me to try to keep you to myself. Very wrong.”

“Katya…” Evangeline succeeded in getting close enough to put a hand on her again. “Katya, I…I enjoy having sex, with…people like me. I’m not going to apologise for that. Today, though, was the first time since you and I have been together, and when, when it was over, I realised something. It was fun. It felt good, but… But that’s all. Compared to what I feel when I’m with you, when you feed from me… Well, it doesn’t compare to that. It just doesn’t.”

Katya raised her head, brushing her hair aside to show her blood-streaked face. Her eyes blazed with anger, brightly enough to make Evangeline take a step back. “Is that all you want from me? My teeth in your neck? Is that all I am, just another drug for you to _trip_ on?”

“I know you’re upset.” Evangeline’s own tears were flowing freely now. “But that hurts. That really hurts. I…I _love_ you, Katya. Sometimes I wish…I wish things could be the way they used to be, when we just used to spend time together, read books…” She blinked, snivelling, almost choking on her distress.

“I’m sorry.” Katya’s expression softened, from anger to regret. “I can be cruel sometimes. I know I can. I say things I don’t mean. _Lastochka moya_, I love you too. More deeply than you know.”

“I want to be with you,” Evangeline told her, miserably. “I want to be there _for_ you, for…for…” The word floated, unbidden, to the front of her mind: “Forever.”

“Nothing is forever, _lastochka_,” Katya reminded her. “Not for people like you…not even for people like me.”

“But at least for people like you…”

Katya cut off Evangeline’s half-formed thought. “_No_, Evangeline.” She spoke with deadly seriousness. “Don’t even think it.” Evangeline tried to kiss her again, on the lips this time, but Katya shrank away. “Let me wash my face.” She blotted her tears with red-stained fingers. “My blood…you shouldn’t…” She headed for the door. “I’m sorry,” she said again as she opened it. “I really am. I shouldn’t have made you cry.”

“We made each other cry.” Evangeline watched Katya leave the room, inelegantly using her sleeve to wipe her eyes and nose. That was the closest thing they had ever had to a fight, she supposed. At least they were still talking afterwards.

When Katya returned, she had washed the blood from her face and hands, brushed her hair and changed into a casual black dress. She came into the room almost nervously, clutching a small paper bag.

“I didn’t want tonight to be like this.” She placed the bag on the table. “I know it’s a special day for you, and I thought… But now I’ve gone and ruined everything.”

Evangeline felt the tears welling again. Katya looked so sad. “How did you know?” she asked, fighting to keep herself together.

“I know people at Barnard,” Katya replied. “People who might be willing to take a look at their records as a favour to me. I thought I’d surprise you, but…” She pointed awkwardly at the bag. “Anyway; happy birthday, Evangeline.”

“Katya…” Evangeline reached for the bag and removed its contents. There was an envelope addressed to her and a small cube-shaped parcel, gift-wrapped, with a red ribbon. The card inside the envelope was decorated with a painting of tulips and chrysanthemums; in the language of flowers, tokens one would gift warmly to a friend and lover. The birthday wishes inside, written in Katya’s small, square hand, blurred before her eyes as she tried to read them. She wiped her sleeve across her face again, then started unwrapping the parcel.

The patterned paper unfolded to reveal a jeweller’s box. Evangeline did not recognise the crest stamped in gold on its lid. She opened it and let out a wordless exclamation. The bright ring ensconced in padded satin within was just the right size for the third finger of her right hand. She slipped it on, holding it to the light and turning it to read the letters delicately engraved around its circumference:

**мой багровый лепесток**

“Can you read it?” Katya asked, shyly. “I know you were learning the Cyrillic alphabet. You should be able to spell it out.”

Evangeline concentrated: “M…O…Y…B…A…G…” She knew then what the inscription must say: “_Moy bagrovyy lepestok_.”

Katya managed a smile. “Your pronunciation is a lot better than it used to be, my petal.”

Evangeline hugged her tightly, kissing her on the mouth, berating herself for her ingratitude, for… “Thank you, Katya.” He tears had wet Katya’s face too. “_Thank you_.”

They kissed again, and again; fiercely, hungrily, collapsing back onto the couch together. Katya’s mouth moved to Evangeline’s neck and for a while the world and everything in it, even thought, was consumed by cleansing golden fire.

Afterwards, they lay together, Evangeline nestling back into Katya’s embrace. On TV, all these hours later, Walter Cronkite was still talking about men in the moon.

“It’s been a strange day,” Evangeline murmured wearily, admiring her ring as Katya slowly licked the already-healing wound on her neck. Every gentle stroke of her tongue sent shudders of pleasure singing along Evangeline’s veins. “Like, really, really strange.”

“I’m sorry about before,” Katya said. “I was selfish.”

“No,” Evangeline insisted. “I was.”

“I meant what I said. If you want to…_see_ your, your friend, then you should. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” Evangeline looked at the ring for the dozenth time in a minute, thinking. “Maybe…maybe _you_ should meet some of my other friends. I know you’re curious about the counterculture, and…maybe it’d just set your mind at ease about what I’m doing when I’m not with you. It might even be good for us to go out somewhere together, instead of just staying in the whole time.”

“That could present…a few difficulties,” Katya pointed out.

“Why?” Evangeline tilted her head back until their mouths met again. “They don’t have to know anything about you, except that you’re…” She laughed. “You’re my old lady.”

Katya laughed too. She was still a little woozy, the way she got after drinking Evangeline’s blood. “That I definitely am.”

“You know, Patrick said something about…” Evangeline trailed off in thought, watching an animated depiction of the Apollo spacecraft zooming through space to its faraway destination. “We’d have to work out some details, do some planning so you could… But it could work. We could make it work. It could be fun.”

“What could be fun?” Katya asked, a little suspiciously.

Evangeline gave her a secretive smile. “What are you doing the middle of next month?”

_Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in this way too long chapter, we have space rockets, “wiseguys,” shopping, pot-smoking, hippie sex, Gratuitous Cyrillic and vampiric blood-drinking. All the good stuff, in other words. Evangeline’s birth date was one of the snippets revealed by Josephine McAdam in that charity stream she did way back in December. When I realised the character’s 22nd birthday was the same day Apollo 11 launched for the moon, not only a significant event in real life but also of major occult importance in the World of Darkness, I was more or less incapable of not referencing it. ;) Too bad it was in the daytime for viewers in the US or I would have had a scene of her and Katya watching it live together…! Pretty much all of the snippets from the CBS live broadcast of the launch are authentic; you can find the whole thing somewhere on YouTube, and if you’re an amateur space cadet like me it’s more than worth your time. Some say the growing popularity of heroin over psychedelics was just as much of a death knell for the 60s counterculture as the Tate-LaBianca murders or the Altamont Speedway Free Festival. It certainly seems somehow symbolic of changing times.


End file.
